


Limits

by HambreSensorial



Category: Horizon: Zero Dawn (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Character Study, During Canon, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Insecure Aloy, Learning to trust, Original Game Dialogues, Slow Burn, Wondering about Aloy's reaction to canon-events
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-04
Updated: 2020-03-28
Packaged: 2020-11-23 10:18:10
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 108,521
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20890499
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HambreSensorial/pseuds/HambreSensorial
Summary: What was left without her Focus, her arrows, or her strength? Was there something else to like? She couldn’t shake the feeling that it was happening, sooner or later: he wouldn't call her pretty if she failed.





	1. The Blessing

Fire hair wasn't a common sight. In fact, Erend couldn't remember the last time he had seen someone like her: pale skin, green eyes, hair as red as a forge's gut. 

"Easy girl, you were just there. I've got time though... if you want to talk some more?" 

"I would have noticed.” Aloy’s head moved only enough to say she knew he was somewhere behind, but where exactly didn’t matter. ”If you had been following me." 

Ersa had jutted her chin, he had nudged her gently. The ranks of men watching the joke had laughed: Ersa’s hand had weaved in dismissal, and now he was in these strange lands no one seemed to know about. 

The journey to Daytower hadn't been measured in days, but in the number of times Reverend Irid had clucked his tongue and read anew some passage from "Rumors of the Nora", one of those famous pamphlets by Well-Traveled Aram the Carja loved to cite to say, without excess words, that they were better than the rest. The Reverend would read without scorn, but his efforts to tame the unknown were just as futile.

Olin frowned and grunted whenever the same faint slurring breathed life into yet another warning from those few pages: mixing outlander and Nora had one certain outcome. Death. But who had seen a Nora before? There was a reason why they were just rumors after all. Erend would nod and grit his teeth and joke about this or that; Irid would tremble up to the lashes. The hours lumbered. 

When time began passing through the wounds that walking made on their feet, the paths had become steeper, the air so clean and cold that it hurt the lungs, so accustomed they were to sooty or spicy air; and the regular spacing between watchtowers evident.

The ambush had made no noise, as if the Nora melted with the trees and became the pair of eyes he had felt since Avad’s letter had made them leave Mother's Crown behind with suspicious ease. Mother's Heart had welcomed them with spears and sullen looks that deepened when the tentacles of the monstrosity perched above the mountain led his eyes up. Erend preferred a good, honest fight to convoluted diplomacy, but there was no escaping it.

He was to them as they were to him: strange objects no one had seen before. The Matriarchs had teared their disdain from the royal scroll to stick them in his steel, Olin's tattooed arms, or the golden edges of Irid's clothing. Erend couldn’t tell only Teersa could read at first, and when he did, Irid was already sticking his finger under their noses and talking like they weren’t three crones, but three bright sparks.

Expectedly, the gauntest and most unpleasant one had decided to make it clear to him that she might have seemed like someone who hated by default, but it was really them what she didn’t like, and that every second they spent there without dying was grace. Olin had yawned and he had pressed his lips to force them closed. Lansra had kept snapping their heads off as Irid piled apologies for things that were hard to forgive.

The subtle process of trading pain for "improvements in the tribes' relationship" turned into a blood-colored gemstone that Teersa and Irid polished, thoroughly rubbing this or that condition in order to open or not the borders while the rest watched with complicit eyes.

Erend had stood tall behind Irid with his hammer's firm weight in his back because he did it too when Avad fought the hordes of resentful nobles, or when Ersa took the reins and found, as no one else could, her own rhythm in the midst of the two battles, that of words and that of weapons.

A few hours later Aloy had stopped in front of him instead of moving on to where the three old ladies were. Those wrinkly pairs of mean eyes had dug into his skull: the disapproving looks cast at them by roughly every Nora gathered there, waiting for the Blessing to begin, had slipped down from Aloy’s shoulders and neck to the ground as if nothing was happening.

His boots had struggled to trample on them, but the snow was slippery. They had crawled from her into him. Three failed attempts to inform her that there was time to speak after the ceremony had led to a fatal blow: he had blurted that Lansra did, in fact,  _ sort of  _ scare him; Aloy had opened her eyes as if she were before something incredible. Then she had smiled, squeezing out the corners of her mouth for the longest he had seen her smile that night. 

Her lamp had waddled into the starry night and she had, for some reason, turned back and not changed path when he couldn’t get out of hers. Mentioning a certain lack of fireworks wasn’t the most appropriate thing to say, but his mind and those three extra ales had counted nonetheless: he had approached her once, she had done it twice. Then she had left. 

She had laughed talking to Irid, tensed up as she spoke to Olin, disappeared in the mass of Nora making their way amidst laughter and hurried footsteps to the tables where the matriarchs had prepared a feast. Erend had decided to step out of the shadows where he had stayed back, dreading that Jazza or Teersa would make him sit with them. Aloy had seen him, or heard him - he didn't quite know which came first. 

He had stepped on the planks of the bridge, relishing in how little was left before he could remove the thick steel chunks making his back hurt. Aloy was leaning on the one bridge that led from the ceremonial slope to the center of Mother's Heart. The one he had, too, taken to go down. She nodded in a silent greeting. They were alone, bathed by the few amber lights scattered around and the quiet of places suddenly empty.

"Ha! I still hold my Vanguard steel would give a lot of trouble to those huntress skills. But you know...we could try it out if you want to show them off that much?”

"Did I only say it'd make you slow? Because it also makes you noisy." Her shoulders relaxed. She stared, pausing at his boots as if she had no way of holding back the thought that they were largely to blame. Erend resolved to plunge: the handrail shook when he leaned on it too. "The music and the chatter are louder than anything I've heard before, and I could still hear you approaching from a hundred feet away. It's called having ears."

"Look, it might be the Nora style, but being quiet isn't the only way to win a fight. So...you know where's the fun, why be here alone? Were you waiting for me?" 

Her voice hardened. Aloy cocked her head this and that way. When her eyes darted back, he knew she had decided he was lying. "They made sure you heard. I'm not welcomed here. Outcast, remember?"

* * *

Aloy leaned on her toes, rocking up and down for a second before putting her heels back on the ground and looking straight ahead. Half of what Erend said seemed to be jokes, but the purpose of it missed her. She hadn't met anyone like that before.

Nor had she met anyone who smiled with such openness after seeing her hesitate. He had approached her too quickly, she hadn’t foreseen it; how could she, when no one had ever done that? His armor has hit her leg, a brief, gentle touch that had put her on alert. Erend's shoulders had jumped more than hers. They had looked at each other, and before she could feign indifference, he had laughed.

Not at her. He had laughed without disdain, scratching one brow and rubbing his lower lip absently before apologizing and moving just enough so he could hear her over the thunderous noise of the celebration. As if there were no reason to walk away. Walk away from her.

What was wrong with him? It wasn't easy to guess, who was one of those who took every little opportunity to do harm and who didn't. Erend cleared his throat, squeezing one knuckle after another. The leather of his gloves wrinkling sounded louder than the background noise. He wouldn't survive a single day in the wilds, like things that weren’t that dangerous.

Aloy rested her face against a palm and looked at him sideways, taking care to move her eyes when he was about to stare back at her. It seemed reasonable that a man with such a strange beard would be the first and only human being to approach her first, on that day and in her whole life. The most expensive thing in the world were voices: Karst had gifted her his after a pair of hands overflowing with intact machine parts. It had cost her days of hunting, and he wouldn't talk, not until time showed him she could keep a secret.

Grata's babbling couldn’t be counted as a finished form of communication, and only Teb and Teersa completed the most recent list of the few who hadn't shunned her. It was easy, to guess a reason why they wouldn’t, just as it was hard to find one for Olin's sullenness. Olin, the _outsider with a Focus, _was not friendly. Why was Erend? Even Rost wasn't. In fact, in comparison, he barely smiled at all. 

Rost. 

How could goodbyes be a simple routine? How could he think of not seeing her again. How could he have said it then, when she needed him most. Her chest hurt. A new twinge stuck between each rib as she watched the rivers of people move under the bridge, knowing that what Rost wanted most while pretending he didn’t was to be there, in that place where every corner felt like a place she shouldn't be, bent under a tradition that had shaped his life to the core.

Mother's Heart was not as she had imagined it because she could never have imagined anything like it: there were so many people that bumping and crashing seemed to be the only way to move between bodies. The food was enough to feed a family for years, the music echoed through the earth and every cavity in her mouth, rumbling as if the whole world was telling her to move.

There were strange, new sounds: one voice was a song, but many voices came together, merging into a vibrating mass that buzzed in each nook and crook. How did one escape noise when it ruled everything? The drums beating in the distance fed her confusion: Erend was holding his answer, Aloy didn't know if thinking was something worth trying anymore. 

Home, that word Rost had repeated with a mix of hope and regret over the past few weeks seemed now like a promise incapable of being fulfilled. Pretending to fit in by staying on the sidelines, warming her hands in the fire for a long time, alone, was not welcoming.

There wasn’t a lot to do before or after the Blessing. The paths had led her to a small stage where a matriarch was telling that story, the story of the origin and the curse of the metal world, the same one Rost had told her hundreds of times. Perhaps the familiarity or the soft flowing voice had deceived her, but she had liked how her fists loosened up bit by bit.

It was finally a reality, sitting among a dozen normal people like any other would. Being one more person listening to a story that belonged to _us_. The murmurs spread as the tale unfolded: heads turned, eyes examined her red hair, mouths moved as if it didn't matter that she saw them move. It didn't matter, and she didn't care either, not for years. But the more everyone knew who she was and why she was there, the more she missed Rost. 

"Right, but food has no eyes and no mouth. Hey, I'm as hungry as you are and as unwelcome as you are. _ Outlander_, remember? So here's the plan: we go down, grab some food, and give a damn what those knuckleheads say. Sounds good?"

"Sure you're going to be okay with Nora food? Because it has eyes. And mouth. Some of it does, at least."

She shrugged, and Erend learned she did it frequently as they moved in silence and began walking, figuring out how many inches between their steps were comfortable. 

* * *

  
Of course they were going to be a board tied with ropes, what else could a Nora bed be than a piece of stiff wood? Erend stretched out, uncomfortable, sitting down, feeling the hairs on his eyebrows move under his tired fingers. Drinking never failed to let him know how little his head liked to be clogged with alcohol, but there was something in that yeasty Nora brew that was making his head explode.

Maybe it was the cold of the air, the heat of so many blankets piled up. The matriarchs had prepared too many, remembering or knowing there was nothing but desert and heat around Meridian, but the only Carja was the priest, and he snored whenever Olin stopped sounding like a Bellowback in the bed next to his.

Two quick movements brought the shirt he was wearing from his chest to the edge of the bed. The roof let in fine lines of pale light. It was also made -like everything they had passed to reach the "All-Mother Mountain”- of wood and rope. The shack the matriarchs had quickly set up for them had the same touch that gave everything the almost tender, limping world-view of isolation. 

The Nora hadn't a second of freedom: they slept in groups, ate and worked in groups, all the basic tasks were solved with hard work. They barely sowed any seeds, and everyone toiled from dawn to dusk. It was surprising to see, considering how proud his people were of this or that machine that would lessen the load of the most repetitive tasks. But no amount of herd-thinking would make it right, the bile they had swallowed that night, he and Aloy.

Olin grunted when he smiled sourly until a noise escaped from between his teeth. The sweat on his back would freeze, so Erend let himself fall backward, regretting as his head hit the too-thin pillow and an arm pulled one of the furs back over his chest. The short, dense hairs felt good on his bare skin. It had been a long time since covering himself with such a heavy coat was more than just not wanting to stop doing the kind of things he liked to do since he was a child. He crossed one arm over his eyes to force them closed and grinned like a fool this time. 

Ersa dreamed big, and among the things he never seemed to learn from her, that luckily wasn't one: they had imagined, prepared, and hammered the Mad Sun-King and all his violence until it couldn't hit back. Like it should be. It all began with a daring thought. 

The Oseram or the Carja were not better than anyone, no one was, not when he knew what war was and what people did because of it. But there was something to be proud of in admiring inventiveness rather than restraint. The words of the Matriarchs, the murmurs that hung in the air, all said the same thing: don't dare, don't ask, don't question the rules of the world. Live in fear. They all seemed to give in.

Everyone except Aloy.

Aloy, as distrustful as she was proud of the trinket she wore over her ear while asking hundreds of questions about Olin's triangle, doubts he could not answer. It didn't stop her from subtly following the threads of the things he wanted to tell her and that he let hanging above them, as though knowing everything was barely enough for her. Erend moved one toe until the closest stream of light covered it. The cold was like a zing. The same as the fierceness that would slant her brows every time he teased her and she repeated, loudly, that she was going to win the Proving. 

He wanted her to. She may have been just a bundle of spunk with a loose tongue, but these people needed some fun. Sharing dinner with her had been as unexpected as anything she had said that night. No words were said until the slope had become a flat path. Things had started to go well -although her answers were monosyllables, they seemed to Erend nice monosyllables- when they reached the area where the whole village was enjoying a hearty dinner. 

Each next table was occupied, and when he finally found another perfect spot to sit very close to her, someone would suddenly make it disappear with this or that gesture of disdain. Getting about thirty armed Braves after you was the typical reckless thing Ersa would add to the -long- list of stupid things he’d done and that she reminded him of with some frequency, but his blood had been about to boil.

Without a word, Aloy had grabbed his shirt above his elbow before dragging him away and suggesting they follow the smokey trail of braised boar's scent. The two fingers holding him had snapped loose awkwardly, and for the first time that night, she had really stared at him wide-eyed as he cursed in frustration, surprised that he thought something could be done there. He had read it in her silence: there wasn’t, not anything worthwhile in the long run, not then.

The waves of music had steered them to a little set apart table next to a cozy fire. A few minutes in and they were discussing tricks to hunt Thunderjaws with two plates full of stew steaming under their noses. The food had barely remained in his mouth while she explained how she had taken one down by herself the night before. Her first one.

Erend stretched out on the bed, feeling his fists hitting the wood on the headboard and his feet sticking out from under it. He knocked his knuckles on the headboard softly. It seemed impossible. Her story had been as hard to believe as someone her age never having heard of the Red Raids or the Derangement. He still couldn't say they were lies.

Aloy wasn't one for words, but her eyes couldn't deceive: they had shone brighter and brighter as he described machines she hadn't seen, places he had visited, a world beyond borders that weren't insurmountable as the Nora thought. Could someone be an outcast and ignore why? Not wanting to explain something like that to a stranger was fair, and the actual reason why he had insisted on wanting to see her skills was a lame attempt to get her to agree.

Spending some time together after the Proving didn't sound half bad. She never said "no", nor followed his hints. His questions about her life didn't progress far either. Their rhythm had remained the same the whole night: she had fired questions, dodged his flirting, made him sound like an ass when he was being one before making him laugh. Before laughing quietly. He wouldn't have bet a shard, but pleading had worked. 

"Not even five? Okay, then just two. Two more minutes?" had become the perfect trap: "Just until I finish my drink" would get her to hesitate even more and nod. Their brew would be refilled after every discreet hill of shards he left on the edge of the table. Her cup would fill easily as he smiled. He'd smile again whenever he picked up the pitcher to add one more finger of ale to his own cup, sometimes more.

A couple of hours had passed unnoticed. He still couldn't say whether she had stayed because of him, or because when she looked to the left and saw the cabin where she had to sleep with the rest of the participants, her face would sour. He had wanted to say he'd be around if things went wrong in there, but by then he was sure she wouldn't ask for his help. Or anyone's help. He also knew she would, but part of him still wondered if she'd have broken his neck had he dared to suggest it anyway. Sharing his bed still sounded like the best way to solve each other's needs. 

Counting them exactly would hurt his pride, but he had invited her to Meridian for the tenth time then - just before she had said she needed to rest early and started walking with a determined step towards the communal bedroom. Her shoulders had been too squared and her strides too long to look relaxed, but he had stared wistfully anyway, wondering why such a woman would want to stay in a place like that.

Erend sighed, letting the voice inside his head repeat that she was just another pretty girl. He couldn't wait to see her coming up to him, smiling, saying "See? I told you I was going to win." He'd have no choice but to buy her a drink. Or three.

* * *

  
It was hard to keep them closed. Her forehead furrowed over her eyebrows and the muscles in her face tightened. Her eyes were so closed it was impossible to rest. Aloy felt like scratching the walls. One leg moving over and over, snoring, mumbling, someone talking in his sleep. Her bed creaked with every little movement and it wasn't the same as always, and her body knew it. And yet, it wasn't that that was keeping her awake. 

Watching Erend refill his cup while both pretended not to notice was so stupid. Why did she do that, and why did he? No one had ever looked at her like that, with that challenge of keeping their eyes open and their chins up, trying to keep the eyes from moving to the other’s mouth when he smiled as if there was nothing new inside the cup dangling between his fingers. Blinking shouldn't be that hard. 

Outlander. Bast had insulted her for "talking to the outlanders”. Aloy wasn’t so sure about what that meant. If more rules began to emerge than the hundreds Rost had tried to teach her to follow, it would be impossible to remember them all. But Vala was nice. Teb too. She had never talked so much to anyone other than Rost, and it was a curious power, talking to someone who didn't hesitate to add more and more words to each answer if she just implied that she wanted to hear more about this or that. 

In the end, things weren't too bad. But there was no time to worry about anything else. She was finally inside Mother's Heart. The Proving was in just hours. There wasn't even time to feel guilty about having forgotten about Rost for a short while.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey there! I'm slowly rewriting this; while the events remain pretty much the same, the rewrite is aiming to eliminate head-hopping, so please keep in mind you'll find some scenes only in one POV, some in both. I know, rookie mistake! This is my very first try at writing, so any comment/thought/concrit about the pace, characterization, or anything you think could help the rewrite would be greatly be appreciated :) Also, if you prefer, email me @ [hambresensorialis@gmail.com](mailto:hambresensorialis@gmail.com)
> 
> Some references: Erend mentions being scared of Lansra if you talk to him before the Blessing begins. ["Rumors about the Nora" ](https://horizon.fandom.com/wiki/The_Nora) by [Well-Traveled Aram](https://horizon.fandom.com/wiki/Aram) is one of the game data points.
> 
> Thanks for reading!


	2. Meridian Gate

The first thing she saw of the man she had thought of sometimes in recent weeks was a stumbling hand. Dark leather-sheathed fingers struggled between the bodies under the massive stone gate. All access to Meridian was closed off.

"Aloy! You're alive, I thought you were dead! Make way, make way! All the way to Meridian, just to see me!" 

His arms opened as if everything in there was his, even the stench that spread like a vine, with two hands at the ends grabbing her throat and rubbing all over her nostrils. Erend smelled as if he'd gotten into a barrel full of alcohol and stayed there, macerating, for all the time it had taken her to recover from the fall.

"Have you been drinking?"

"Ah, not really. A little. So you're alive! This is - we should celebrate! Drinks on me!" 

Aloy pursed her lips. Rost had died and with him the past, even the brief past of a foreigner whom she could not find in the haughty smile or the loud ordering voice in front of her. Perhaps the night had made her blind then, or maybe time truly gobbled up all, even the crumbs.

Teersa had nailed a Seeker Mark on her hand, and the small leather disc threaded with colored lines had split time in two: no one was deaf anymore when she arrived at a place, and her voice could rise above others, and those others heard her.

All those years of sorrow vanished - others made them vanish - with overwhelming ease. The malaise that hissed under her feet and knees when the unfairness of it all bit returned to the ground when she remembered Rost. She couldn’t make him petty, so she wasn’t. She couldn’t make him revengeful, so she wasn’t either.

There were times when the rage survived a little longer, like when Fia, the healer in Mother’s Rise, said she had never approved of outcasting anyone. Aloy had nodded, perhaps even thanked her. The past was not going to change by saying she didn't remember being welcomed when those words wouldn’t have been complacent, but valiant.

People were another thing; a new, illogical one. Thok, Anara, Yan, Den — even Varl or Sona. Names had marched along with faces for the first time in the long days of traveling through the Embrace to reach Daytower. All of them had asked for her help, the faces that now had names, and talked and pleaded so freely. 

It was strange, to know there were so many who found some use in her, and who would have remained silent when she was just the same as she had been: and so, suddenly, she didn't know who she was anymore. 

Perhaps what she had thought belonged to her - that contrast she had fiercely appropriated, like when she left her hair down since all the young Nora she saw tied it up or made dreadlocks out of it— was just scraps. Scraps of what she had been denied, powerless pride.

The first summer when she stopped recognizing every tree and every rock had turned into a massacre: Rost was bleeding under her feet, and she no longer needed to return to Mother's Heart, at least not in a hurry. Seeker's contract didn't run out. 

She was alone, chasing a traitor through the Way of Broken Bones, the old path that linked Daytower to the Sundom. Such a fitting name.

The door hadn't opened. The voice of that strange woman who looked so much like her had to be behind the door that no one knew was a door. Her legs had buckled, but what hurt wasn't the impact on her knees, nor the voice talking about corruption. Rost had died so that the damn door wouldn't open, so that eleven years of wanting to know what made her so worthless turned out to be useless. 

Teersa knew nothing. She had appeared at the feet of that very same door one day and they had decided to hate her. It could have been different if one person, Lansra, had had a different opinion. Or if Teersa had been more powerful, or the tribe less cruel. The randomness made holes in her stomach with unexpected precision.

The trail of invisible blood had followed her from the mountain to that impossible fortress that floated over the desert, chasing her with thirst; dry, broken lips, and sandstorms.

"We need to talk,” Aloy said. “Alone. And you need to pull it together." 

Standing guard at Meridian Gate was no fun. Everything moved, nothing happened; keeping one's eyes so open that petty theft and skirmishes were not lost on the workers and wagons that came and went every day was an impossible task. 

"Over there." 

"So you approve-"

It was in the guard's eyes. The one keeping Aloy from passing the gate, the one in the far corner, the other yawning behind his back. What kind of a Captain would make rounds at Meridian Gate? He had decided to keep things just as Ersa had left them written before she died - perhaps others figured it was a way of not losing what little he had left of her. It was the dizziness.

The one he felt when none of his men - _his men!_ \- dared say anything when he took his feet out of the tavern towards the gate with the soles stepping on his head and not the ground. Drinking had never been a pair of stairs before, but somehow the only thing he saw in the jar of ale he was already missing was how much alcohol would take him forward until he forgot some more.

"Of course I approve! From now on she may come and go from this city as she pleases!"

"As you wish, sir." 

Erend fell silent before nodding his head to Aloy to follow him. She tilted again. First it had been backwards, this time a little to the left, always away from him. There was no longer any trace of the disgust he had picked up as he struggled to decide whether he was hallucinating or not. Aloy was looking at his steps, perhaps reading the errant jitters he was trying to hide. He looked straight ahead. 

The sad looks he'd harvest with his carelessness had stop hurting long ago, but the unwanted sympathy people showed after Ersa’s death irked him. Why had she trusted him to lead the Vanguard? Why were Avad, Marad, and his men expecting him to be what he had never been? But Aloy and he had moved to a quiet corner on the bridge, with the Spire shining in the distance and a clear blue sky above their heads. She knew nothing. He faked a smile. 

"There, alone, as you asked. What did you want to tell me?" 

"I heard what happened to Ersa. I'm sorry, I know she was special to you." 

Aloy knew nothing, but even an outcast was taught to drop that old pamphlet, the same courtesy full of lies. Even Aloy made the barrel full of black goo that had been hanging over his head for days throw a few drops on her.

They dripped, covering her shoulders as if to swallow her up too. He didn't want to fight them. He didn't have anything to fight with, either. 

"Special to me. Heh! Special to _everyone_! She always knew what to do. Bossed everyone around - she kept me in line. Now I'm supposed to fill her shoes. And instead, here I am, stumbling around in them."

Something had changed. Erend was waiting for her to call him a fraud, almost daring her to spit in his face like someone expects rain when the air smells charged. Aloy measured the nervous stirring of the guards in the distance and the defeat on his voice until she was sure she had really saw through it. 

Learning to carry the weight of someone extraordinary wasn’t easy.

"I lost someone, too. At the Proving. The man who raised me. His name was Rost." 

A name stifled her tongue this time. She hadn't spoken it since leaving Mother's Heart, since even Teb hadn’t known Rost had been there; since he'd looked at her with his good, clean eyes as though he was surprised to remember there was a man with her the day she had saved him. No one else deserved his name, not when Rost would have died for every one of the Nora who didn’t remember him.

"That's terrible." Five, ten, thousands? Erend didn't know how many times he'd said the same thing in the last two days. 

How absurd, to say it to someone who'd come from the farthest place he could remember, the Embrace with its crummy shacks. Yet there he was, saying the same old rubbish to Aloy with her strikingly pretty face and her disgusting scale that made grief a mere tantrum. 

"Why is it every time something terrible happens...everyone else tells the worst thing that ever happened to them, as though that makes it easier?"

No one else’s hair was moving. so where did that heated gust come from? And why was it stirring only her. She needed his help. The punch could come later. Aloy tightened her stomach to force a neutral tone in her reply. "Yeah. Why is that?"

How stupid she had been to think things could change after becoming a Brave. After Erend had become that something that had helped her figure out her new role in the tribe since no one was like him, that sharing laughs just because Rost had mentioned sometimes with stars spread on his eyes.

"Anyway. There was something you wanted to tell me?" Erend shook one shoulder, then the other. He was the type of ass who could tell when he was being one, so why wasn't she jumping to his neck? Instead, she mentioned the Proving attack, he tried to make up for his impulsiveness. "I've never heard such a wail of grief as the sound that rose up from your people. How did you survive?" 

He’d seen Aloy after the Proving. Part of her, at least - her blood had left two threads all over Mother's Heart, one red and one made of whispers. Gossip swirled all over the place, mentioning how she’d won the test and questioning how she'd survived. Whether it was a good or bad omen. 

He had been careful to avoid stepping on the rusty blood that guided them when Lansra shouted them out and Jazza tried uselessly to give the farewell a semblance of formality.

They had left without a word, watched over by a pair of Braves who could barely hold back their tears of rage. Those had been the quietest days of his life. He had thought her dead as soon as the hunters had broken their silence for a couple of seconds and discussed Teersa's decision to take her into the mountain. 

Erend didn't know what was wrong with it, but he had learned all about the Nora's preferred healing method. Praying saved no one. 

"How I survived is less important than how I was targeted. I need to find Olin. I need to know what he knows." 

"But - he's a friend!" 

Friend. Aloy understood the subtle meaning well: he wasn't interested in her understanding. He barely believed her over Olin, and the doubt he was dispensing was courtesy. 

"I don't need you to understand, Erend. I just need you to take me to him."

Erend’s jaw stretched. He wanted to put her in a sack and throw her, along with all her accusations, over the bridge. She deepened her frown, life left him in a second - he sighed, defeated, his fingers hanging out as if he didn't have the strength to keep his fists clenched. 

"I guess. As long as I'm there to witness the search..."

"I need to see Olin's place. Now." 

What had she done wrong? His feet trampled her over. Erend began dragging them and making her chase him without even knowing if she was actually following. The first time they had walked together he had stopped and stopped, making sure their paces met, always a bit closer.

The wobbling hammer hanging from his back was the one to welcome her into Meridian — there were walls made of rocks as big as the ones she used to hide from the machines, and every insignificant corner made everything she had seen a mere joke: people of all kinds mixed together in an intangible order.

Erend glid, knowing where to put each foot to slide between every new body covered with colored clothes she hadn't seen and smells she had never smelled. In a second, time and space became something else, where paths could be very narrow and the bustle so dense that things occurred only slowly.

"So many people here, all talking at once, how does anyone think?" 

How could there be so many people talking with their fists in their mouths, their heads between their legs, pretending they couldn't hear or respond, just make noise? He'd asked himself the same thing a thousand times. Meridian was a landscape of heads stuck in asses sometimes, but what wasn't? The Claim?

"I don't. I just drink,” Erend dared look back sideways - Aloy was about to break into the smile of someone who didn’t know if laughing was appropriate when he saw her. She stopped, and for a second he was afraid she'd drop her awed eyes from the Spire and watch him shamelessly longing.

Her waist was a column, and her shoulder a ledge, and after hearing her say that, some of him believed he might be able to sleep some if he slept with her and her strange smell, of things that weren't part of the memories that haunted him when he laid his head on the bed of that too empty house.

It was then. "Blood for blood! Vengeance for Ersa! How long will Avad hide in his palace?" 

"One more word, you scorched-out slug, and I'll throw you in jail myself! Get out of here, or I'll give you all a kick in the ass!”

He became a bastard. A lowlife, insulting and condemning those who cried out for justice. Wanting to vomit the more he spat out words. It'd stink less. Avad was still _ assessing _the situation as if valuing Ersa's life were a matter of thoroughness.

The inaction of a man who didn't move because he knew he shouldn't wasn’t the problem, but that he had convinced him. Burning the grounds of every place a Shadow Carja set foot must have been some beginning. A beginning for him, Erend, the reckless one. Erend, the one who plunged into battle without a second thought. Erend, who never doubted that fairness prevailed over correctness.

Avad had exploded like never before - he was Captain of the Vanguard now, would he use it to destroy what Ersa had died for? They hadn't liberated Meridian to spill more blood, but to achieve peace. Peace. What did peace matter if Ersa couldn't see it? Yet he made an effort. 

In particular, when a few of his tribe were making a fuss about his sister's death. Who else could tell them to shut the hell up? Erend gritted his teeth like a villain, scaring away the curious crowd who would start spouting rubbish about the Captain of the Vanguard being a coward. Aloy saw it all. He wished she wasn’t there. 

"What did he mean about Ersa's murder?" 

Her footsteps were light. No one stepped like that in Meridian, no one but those who had just arrived in the city with the surprised trotters of who knew there was too much to discover if they didn’t hurry. He sped, seeing the alley to Olin’s just ahead; she caught up with him and asked again.

Her eyes might had made him grin that night, but now they were another gaze to evade. There was a distinct way to look at pathetic things. "Not now." 

"Are you sure you're okay?" 

Aloy wasn't good at reading body language. Erend huffed. He'd taken her there, even kicked the door down. All things he shouldn’t have done. She was there for her own business, so why did she keep asking? Half-assed care comforted no one. 

"I'm sober enough, all right? I don't need another lecture!”

"That's not what I meant. I was talking about what happened outside with the crowd.” 

Erend stared at the frown between her brows. Was she mocking him? What did she want? A dissection of how he had threatened the people who were demanding what he should have?

"I don't want to talk about that. We're here because of what you said about Olin, so do what you need to do." 

The black circles under his eyes weren't the only telltale. He sighed and frowned more than he breathed. The light hurt his eyes, making him close them when everything got a little brighter. Aloy looked at the sharp lines where darkness swirled in his face and clenched her fists before dashing up the stairs, wanting to finish as quickly as possible too. 

Her Focus was a trap. She looked around the room, but her eyes were drawn to the door, to the figure with "Erend" written next to it as it rested its hip on one side of the frame and one hand on the other. 

She watched it as it rubbed its eyes or scratched its hair, as it took impatient steps. Maybe that's why it took her so long to see what she had missed below the rug. What did one conversation matter, and why did it make her worry about someone who had insulted her?

It was a first for her, but for Erend? There were hundreds of people in Meridian he could talk to every day; so many that he had grown tired of hearing the condolences she never heard. Aloy couldn't imagine it, Rost being buried by more than Teresa's grace. It made her bitter, his privilege, and that he didn't prize it. That he didn't remember.

His mood changed so much. He seemed to remember sometimes, at least parts of their talk, their jokes, and became a little kinder when he did, like when he saw her move the rug and leaned over to help her. 

At other times, he forgot in part who she was, wrinkling his face, looking up with smoke and splinters flying behind his back before he smiled mischievously, as though he were proud that they shared the same appreciation for the rules standing in their way. As if he was impressed that she was there, in Meridian. He was strange.

Her ribs bowed inward and swallowed her breath when they leaned together on the table where Olin's diary was. Erend's eyes moved faster than his fingers turning pages, and the hint of disappointment she saw in them made her more pleased than guilty. 

"He called himself a friend. That backstabbing cheat!" 

He believed her. His words were no longer complaints, but questions, specific questions about how she had suspected Olin and why. He believed her even when she explained the Focus revealed the unseen. He hadn't made the face that Rost had made, nor had he said it was a plaything. He had just nodded, as if it was the most normal thing in the world, to see the unseen.

It was a relief, to have proven she wasn't a liar, until it wasn't. Erend blocked the door. She had no way out. Would he know how to take the Focus away from her? He'd probably seen Olin take his off with his fingers like it was just a little bit of sand sticking to your cheek. 

"Wait! If that device lets you see the unseen-" 

"Out of the way, Erend." 

"I'm asking you to help me, Aloy! I need to know who killed Ersa! 

If it was another joke, it was a bad one. He had pushed her away every time she had tried to ask about Ersa. He had rejected her; hurt her when she shared Rost's name. Now he wanted her help? 

Except he didn't, like no one did. He wanted her Focus. And his supplicant tone was everyone's, and she hated it. Everything - the needless kindness, the openness, the warmness. The qualities that made him unique had vanished. 

"I'm sorry about your sister, but that's your war, not mine."

Erend wanted to rip his skin off and show the rage eating him up. The only thing holding him together was the certainty that the heads that had killed Ersa were in the world. That meant he could crush them. He and Aloy, alone, quietly investigating while Avad carried the weight of years of conflict was the only way he could do anything.

It didn't matter how many times he cringed, seeing himself fooling around, playing the stranger from a distant and lush land with Aloy. Trying to sound like something he wasn’t. Nor how many times he saw in her eyes how much she knew he was all bluff. Charity was a fair price to pay if that meant Aloy'd help him. 

"But why should you have justice, and not me? Look, I'll head for Red Ridge Pass - where's Ersa's body was found- and wait for you there. A few minutes of your Focus is all I need...don't make me beg." 

A few minutes of her Focus. Aloy wanted to stomp to stop the itching in her feet: she knew where to find Olin, and there was no more gut to give to the memory of Rost to nibble on. Erend was disarmed by then, and she had no doubt he'd beg her if she forced him to. 

There was a reason why Rost had always said the same the few times she broke down: she didn't need the tribe. She didn't need Erend to be different from the rest. They were comforts, indulgences that'd hold her back. She was better than that. She’d prove it. "Red Ridge Pass, you said? I'll see what I can do.”

For the first time since Ersa had died, Erend moved his feet with determination. Aloy passed by him like a storm raging to destroy a city. He let her, watching the cloth that covered her legs wave as she jumped through the shattered pieces of the door that had hidden the basement. It was exciting, seeing her again. But she was just a Nora girl, and they had agreed to meet at the spot where Ersa had been found dead.

There were limits he couldn't cross.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!


	3. Red Ridge Pass

Her hips were bouncing with that rhythmic cadence that at times made her nod when it was too quiet and the desert sun made her drowsy. She saw him then. Erend was a tiny figure about to be crushed by a Grazer. 

The heat turned into a wind tunnel as Aloy leaned forward, spurring the Broadhead on to speed as more machines appeared. But he didn't really need her help. The moment he stopped to glare at her closing in was the only one he stopped waving his hammer as if it were a piece of cloth. 

"Glad that's over with. Thanks for the help,” Erend said. Leather didn't soak up sweat, but his glove ran over his forehead anyway, dragging the liquid down his temples. He stood, breathless, staring at the machine’s legs and her feet as if they were about to stomp on him. "Come on over here and have a word. What are you waiting for?" 

Aloy squared her shoulders and pivoted her body to turn the Broadhead around and get off just a few feet from where he was. Her knees were on the ground as she tore down the fallen machines, sifting through each component until finding the few saleable ones. She frowned at the hammer hanging on his back again. Crushing machines might have been the perfect attack for someone his size, but what was left on the ground was nothing but useless shards.

Erend’s hands spread out in the way she had begun to despise, surrounding his body like he had a right to make demands on her. "What,” he insisted, “don't feel like talking?" 

No one else had the knack of making her regret faster. She scowled. He spat on the floor. His snort followed just like the next machine waiting for a thorough check became a target for her fingers. The breeze rose suddenly, moving sand across her face and stirring the few trees and bushes around. 

The sighs of relief told them they were there, a couple of feet apart. Cherishing the same wind, struggling under the same hardship. She couldn't make out why, but he was smiling, almost chuckling as she lifted her blue scarf to let a little cool under her garments. 

The gravel and sand on the ground creaked under his steps. "Hey. Seriously. We need to talk." 

Aloy got up before approaching him as if he had just arrived and nothing had happened. How could he stay on his feet with all that steel on him? He had to be on fire. "What are you doing out here all alone? Where are your men?" 

"I don't mind putting my worthless ass in the line, but not theirs. Sorry I had to drag you into this.”

"Don't worry. This is just an average day for me. You know...take down some machines, track some killers.”

Erend tried to judge whether she was trying to be sarcastic, hurtful, or both; but her smile was too innocent, and the slight disdain that had classified him and his problems among the things that didn't trouble her was too fine.

"Right. I'd hate to see a busy morning for you. Ready to get started?"

"Are you sure you're alright?" 

Was he all right? He wasn't all right when he decided to run and apologize. Aloy had vanished when he stopped short in front of Olin's door as if she had known Meridian for years, and knew what turns to take to avoid running into an idiot.

He had not been well as he walked, one step at a time, wondering how many days his scalp would peel and itch, and whether his vest would get so full of sweat it’d crush his chest. He had not been pleased either when he saw her arrive with a row of flying sand behind her. 

The rumors at the gate had made him laugh. Machines, tamed? Worse, with people above them. If sticking your hands around the neck of a Strider or Charger and holding the thick wires there to make a machine obey were that easy, everyone would do it. 

Funnily, seeing Aloy walk made it less ridiculous to see her ride that screeching thing. She walked exactly like someone who would get off a Broadhead without looking back, without doubting if it was going to attack when she had her back to it. That precise, rolling gait that made his head wobble back and forth. 

He didn't know why he had worried if she would know how to get there or not. If he had told her how to get there or not. Aloy had grown from a point on the horizon to an untamed hunter, stunning him, in a matter of seconds. She had not arrived earlier because she did not want to, she had made him wait for hours in that disgusting heat because she wanted to. Was he all right? 

"Well... I'm sober. So...no." 

He wasn't great either when she asked him to recall the details of what had happened the night Ersa died. Nor when he had to explain. When they finally got there. The bottom of the barrel that day had a name, a voice, and words. Hers. 

"Her best men? But she didn't bring you?"

"No... I've been drinking...a lot. Maybe she thought..." The same thing Aloy was thinking, and what she had thought as she inspected him, sitting on the Broadhead that ran faster than any other Broadhead. What she thought as she looked at him from there, on its awfully high spine, and he looked at her without knowing whether he was ashamed or not of what she was thinking. 

His eyes struggled to keep up, but an unblinking confession was the only cane he could give his dignity. "Damn. I don't know. That I couldn't hack it. The Shadow Carja are animals. They beat her so bad we can't even show her face before burial."

"I'm so sorry, Erend." 

"Yeah, well - when I find the soldiers who did this, they'll be sorry too." 

Aloy opened her eyes abruptly as if she wanted him to realize too. It only mattered that they were there. That she could do something. "All right. Show me where Ersa fell, and I'll do what I can to help.”

She ran after him without a word at first, asking questions a bit later. Then she was on the ground staining her knees, touching rocks, nodding her head in determination when he pleaded "Please, I need to find the bastards who did this.”

She explained everything she saw, and her hands moving through the air or over this bloodstain or that one without rhyme or reason suddenly made sense. She would check to see that he had heard her and was paying attention before ignoring him again. Before she went back to digging up every speck of dust in that cursed place.

Others would have kicked him and left him alone in Meridian with his bad mood. Erend tucked at the scarf around his neck before clearing his throat. "So...you are not telling how you survived? Earlier, I..."

Aloy raised her eyes bluntly, waiting to understand why he had interrupted her. "I wasn't at my best, you know..._ earlier_. But I'm glad you didn't die, from what I heard it seemed impossible. And you won the Proving, right? I knew you would!" 

"You didn't say the same thing when I told you I'd win for the fourth time." 

It was just a moment. A second while her nose creased over a half-smile, the wind blew her hair away, a pair of copper wires floated over her face. A second of peace. The peace he had not found in days. Standing where he had first seen Ersa's motionless, slaughtered body was disgusting. But Aloy stood up slowly and began to speak. 

"Rost saved me. He pushed me off a cliff... before they murdered him. I only remember a blast. Teersa said there wasn't much left of him to bury." 

"Th-" 

"I don't know how I survived, but I do know what for." They looked at each other and saw the willingness to revenge. Erend lost count of the number of blows that seeing her there, standing beside him, had given him in the stomach. He couldn't say if he would have done the same. Helping her while knowing where Ersa’s killers were and who they were.

"You said he was..." Aloy raised an eyebrow. The details were floating in the ripples of alcohol that had turned his days into loose, scattered consciousnesses. "Your father, right?"

"No." The ground should have started shaking under his feet. "I said he was the man who raised me. I was outcasted for being motherless when I was born. I have no father." 

The ground should have swallowed him up had the world been fair. It wasn't. It was so unfair that it had to be a joke, what she was saying. Even unfairness had limits. "What? Did you cry a lot when you were little and nobody wanted to take over or what? What kind of people outcast others because somebody doesn't have a mother?"

"Apparently it makes more sense if my mother is the mountain."

Erend looked at her as if four legs had suddenly popped out of her breasts. Aloy re-read the fine lines around his lips. He stretched them out as if he wasn't sure whether to laugh or not. 

No one asked her questions about herself, none of the dozens of people she had helped before she came to Meridian. That might be why she had answered, why she didn't know whether to turn around and keep examining the site or not. Erend laughed. 

"Yeah, that'd be a quick way to get others to call you savage, for sure." Then he turned white, so white that his skin, reddish and heat-stricken, seemed to hide under a thick layer of snow. "I'm sorry, I just..."

"Finally something we can agree on."

"I'm sure the Nora have plenty of good thin— “

"Save your spit. The Nora didn't want me.”

Somehow the nut in his throat cracked above the layers and layers of silk and leather. "Well, if you ask me, I'd say it was their loss." 

He made less and less sense, Erend. With every sneaky peek, with every flicker of his feet. That he wouldn't stop talking to her when it hadn't been a day since he growled he didn't want to. 

"Look,” he said. “I just... wanted to apologize. I know what it means that you're here and not looking for Olin. Without you— _your Focus_. Without your Focus, I wouldn't know what to do but...go insane. Thank you. I mean it." 

Her boot fiddled with the small rock she had noticed on the ground as she tried not to see him approach her slowly. The open hands at the sides of his body no longer looked like mallets, but two simple hands that moved to hide this or that hesitation. 

The burning cheeks were no longer a doubt about how sober he really was, but that unpleasant tension of not knowing what to answer, of not knowing what to say. The evening sun tired quickly. In a single moment the sky had taken on a grayish hue, and the wind was no longer an abrupt rush, but a gentle flow.

Erend took another step before raising his eyelids to almost his eyebrows and pretending that the words would only come out of his mouth if he touched the back of his head until it caught fire. "I'm just saying...sorry for being this useless, I guess? I can't even do anything... except...well, watch." 

"The Focus does the bulk of it, as you said..."

"Fire and spit, I-" The scratching went from his neck to his forehead. He huffed, squeezing his brows into a struggling frown. "Anyway, I just wanted you to know that the moment Olin shows up on Meridian, my men know to keep him around for you. It's no big deal, but...if you need anything, anything at all, just...say the word, and it's done. I don't have to look at you twice to know Rost was a great man. It'll be my honor. To help." 

He wasn't expecting anything, maybe that's why seeing her stop in her tracks and stare at him made him put his hands up, ready to apologize over anything. 

"You remember...you remember his name."

"Uh...yeah? I'm sorry I didn-"

"Thank you, Erend." Aloy smiled. Not like a half-burning forge, but with verve, as if someone had put the mouth of a bellows between them and was striving to make things get on track. She smiled again. At him, through gentle eyes. The bellows were no longer between her and him by then, but in his chest, working at full throttle. "You say you're useless, but you sound confident in being able to meet my demands. Anything is a big thing to promise."

"Right? I shouldn't make empty promises like that. I wish you'd have met Ersa. She'd have helped you in any way you need. Any."

"I bet you could too, she was your sister after all. I'm glad you let me help.”

He was still embarrassed when she turned around to keep helping him. When the sidelong glances were no longer surly but smiling. When she said it was an ambush, that there was no proof the culprits were Shadow Carja. When she said to follow her. He followed her. They strode for many minutes, then more. He tailed her when she said she did know where she was going because she was following a track. He couldn't see anything. 

"You're not gonna say anything? I was right, wasn't I?"

"About what?" Aloy turned to him before peering back into the horizon of dirty brown and orange rocks. There wasn't much north of Meridian but dry, barren things. 

"By the forge, about Meridian! You stopped! When we passed in front of the Spire? You _have_ to see it up close, I'll show you next time. They usually don't let anyone but Carja near it, but it' d be even more terrible if I couldn't fix that."

"It's...huge. All of it, like..."

"Like it's _ too big _?" Aloy nodded a little. "It was the same for me when I first saw the Palace... I don't think I really understood how massive Meridian is until after a while. Guess it was worse for you. I don't mean this in a bad way, but... moving from those huts to the Sun-Ring... I mean, the blue and the carvings are great, but..."

He was laughing. Erend had chosen to look at her and laugh rather than say anything else, and, for some reason, so had she. She hadn't forgotten. She could still recognize her own voice moving air puffs as she chuckled. Erend lit up like a candle when he realized the noise wasn't a grunt. Expectedly, the flame was a babble. 

He could make jokes about the feathers on the Carja's head now that she had seen them. She laughed at his grimace and wondered if he was really looking ahead every few minutes with a frown because he didn't want to reach wherever they were going if he was as aware as she was that it would soon be over. She would have to go back to not making sense of anything, he would have to go back to remembering that nothing was like before.

Aloy was sure they could have taken half the time to make it where the Focus was leading, and that the hundreds of questions he had asked her - how she recovered, about the corruption he had never seen; about what she did before, when she was bored and couldn't talk to anyone - couldn't interest him that much. Each answer made him connect thoughts, and she saw them spark when he opened his eyes or made another joke.

There were also sparks when the bodies that came out from behind Dimmed Bones’ big, rusty plate made him boil until he exploded and smoked. "Oseram, not Shadow Carja. Looks like I was wrong about everything. As usual. Please, use that second sight of yours. I have to know what really happened." 

Erend was enveloped in black smoke, a dense layer that wrapped him up and made him see what no one else saw. The first compliment she heard about him was from Irid, the priest, when she did not ask him, and he did not hesitate for a moment to say that Erend "was a good man" as if it were a matter of course. 

The second came from the mouth of Balahn, Daytower's Captain, who mentioned him and Ersa with the smile that Aloy had only seen when one brother of blood spoke of the other. The guards they left behind as they walked through Meridian not only lowered their heads but looked at him with concern when it was safe to look at his back, as if Erend's suffering hurt them as well. 

The black cloud seemed to creep into his mouth and make him say whatever it took to make it clear that if Ersa was killed, it was his fault. To make it clear he knew it was Ersa who was worth it, not him. Not him, who had freed Meridian along with her, who had made a king his ally, Meridian his city. 

Not him, who had sensed that the Focus could do what no one else could, that there was something strange about Ersa's death, that had managed to get her to Red Ridge Pass because what he said was exactly what he had to say. 

He, who had fought beside her as an equal when the Oseram attackers made two Thunderjaws appear. He, who had made her suspect that what she had hated moments ago was that mist, and not him. He was the man who could make her talk as if Rost were sitting on the same log he always sat on.

His belly would be full and the fire crackling above the dense snow. Rost would rub his hands on his face to get rid of the cold or the heat, and she would talk about everything she had not talked about in the whole day. 

"I have a theory," Aloy said. "But it takes a little imagination..." 

Erend nodded like he had been waiting for that moment for many moons. "So far, your theories are better than other people's facts."

The clean weapons, the bloody rock. The strange machine. A face conveniently disfigured. She didn't have to explain the conclusion, just the facts. It didn't take Erend a second to think as she did. 

"That can't be. Her body is lying in state in Meridian. I saw it!"

"You said she was unrecognizable. Maybe they switched another body into her armor, someone around the same size... and mutilated it enough so it could have been anyone, even Ersa. Go back to Meridian. Take another look at that body. If it's really Ersa, of course, I'm wrong. But if I'm right…”

"Then my sister could be alive! I'm going. Meet me back there when you can!" 

They didn't say goodbye. Erend was running like he fought, battling the weight of all that metal, lifting his boots up high and fast so they wouldn't get caught in the burning sand. She hadn't intended to return to Meridian so soon. Perhaps there she could say goodbye at ease, wish him good luck before never seeing him again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! :)


	4. Date in Meridian

Everything shone. The colored banners fluttering between the buildings, and the vivid silk and the toasted skin of the men and women swarming through Meridian as if nothing had happened.

The sparkling water gushing in every corner made the capital look like a man-made valley, with towers as high as mountains and kites - the ones Aloy didn't know what to call until several merchants tried to, shouting, sell her one - that flew like birds above the heads. 

But, above all, Erend gleamed. He sparkled beside a man she hadn't met next to what could only be the Sun-King's throne. That king who wanted to see her though she was no one, perched under the ornate blue awning that averted the burning sun. Surrounded by so much gold she saw glimmers when she closed her eyes. 

Blameless Marad - or so he had called himself - led her up the stairs made of white, lustrous stone. Erend was already close enough to notice him looking as if each of her steps were something he had imagined a hundred times. The first staircase led to the first landing, the next one to the following. 

He was in front of the enormous throne that presided the center of the mezzanine stuck between the two tall buildings that made the bulk of the palace. His body was half-hidden from her eyes, leaning back with a playful smile and never taking his hands off his lap. Each of his joints moved as if what was to happen there required careful preparation. A new voice pulled her to the front of the space.

"Aloy of the Nora - she who sees the unseen. Welcome. It would seem you have done me a great service.”

Avad had begun to speak as he spoke when he was playing king, without waiting for anyone to set the pace. Erend examined every angle around the sharp points around Avad’s nape. He wouldn't notice him.

Aloy was mesmerized by the crown - the huge, ridiculous crown that Avad hated and that wobbled around too much, but that he couldn't stop wearing since the symbols were the only thing that kept him from looking like any other man.

Erend barely bent over, lowering his head a little despite Marad's reproachful glance, raising his eyebrows and repeating the movement when Aloy looked at him sideways. He didn't need to ask what she was thinking when he saw her make that face.

His reaction wouldn’t have been so restrained if a man he didn't know suddenly said he'd been very helpful, even if it had been Avad, even if it had been a mere gesture of courtesy. Aloy blinked in disbelief before worrying again that the crown would decide to take out one of her eyes. Erend choked on a stifled laugh as her neck tightened and bent, following his lead.

"Erend." Avad turned his head to point at him. "Tell her what you found." 

"I checked Ersa's tomb. You were right, Aloy. The body is missing a scar below the right knee. I gave it to Ersa when we were kids, fighting over a toy sword.”

He would have liked her to keep looking at him, to keep wondering whether she was happy for him, of having been right. To know if he really knew her a little more and that smile was saying "How did you play when you were little that you opened knees?", but Avad stole her attention.

The list of thieves wasn't long, but varied: after Avad came Marad, then Dervahl. Aloy looked then as if she was willing to believe him more than anyone else when he said it wasn't possible. It all seemed to come back to life: Ersa, the himself he had left behind, a past that no longer had any meaning, not two years later, not then. Erend nodded when Avad gave him permission to leave. They both knew he would have left with or without his consent.

"Erend, Marad - let me discuss it with her privately." Avad took two steps forward, confident. Why had he wondered whether a Nora outcast would know how to bow? Aloy bowed her head again and gave Avad a smile that seemed warmer than any he had ever seen.

The tiny star-shaped pieces on the floor creaked louder than on other days as his weight shifted to carry out the command. They creaked, even more, when he took long strides to follow Marad and leave the throne. His eyes turned, helpless, one last time. Aloy seemed to know it was not the ground but he who was stepping too hard.

Aloy slid her eyes through the line that joined the roof and her feet. No wonder they called him Sun-King: the machine pieces covering Avad’s chest had been coated with a thin golden veil - even his skin had a yellowish tint, as if the sun wanted to make it clear he was his son with or without the layers and layers of tinkling jewelry.

"Quite a palace you've got here." Erend's head stopped short in the distance when her arms moved like the blades of a mill. "You can almost see the tiny people below the mesa." Aloy spread her hands out to the sides, eager to let Avad see the extent of the excess in that huge palace.

"You don't approve?" Avad followed through and opened his arms too with the smugness that admires and hates outspokenness in equal measure. "Well, I have a secret for you. Neither do I."

The only sign of age on his skin was a somewhat deep furrow between his cheekbones and jaw: his youthful, poised power was unlike the allegedly wise wrinkles of the great matriarchs, who became so because they were old, and survived longer than the rest. 

His shoulders weren’t a feeble house that held heirlooms either, but two pillars placed on two firm feet that didn’t guard but crushed the past because the path ahead could be better. But he wore his crown too low. Like a little trick for when his eyebrows raised too high, tensed, wiggled or bent with anything that was not appropriate for his position. 

"But we must be patient." Avad spoke as if he couldn't explain it enough. He was probably that kind of man, the kind that not only commands, but convinces. "Change won't come in a single sunrise." 

"But will it happen at all, while men live in palaces?" Aloy wondered what Erend thought of it all. Was he looking at her because her dull brown clothes were like a shadow in the middle of that glittering palace? Maybe he felt the same way when he stood by Marad's gilded eyes and the crown that reflected all of Meridian from a comfortable height.

But he was probably looking at the view behind her. Everything could be seen from there - the great domed towers that competed with the sun in blinding the eyes, the deadly distance between the streets of Meridian and Meridian Village. The lush jungle in the background. He had been right. It was daunting, what expert hands did with the same stones that made up houses in any other place.

Vanguardsmen approached him every little bit, lumbering until reaching right behind the throne where Erend was, nodding when he gave them orders. Avad slid to the right until he subtly entered her field of vision, complaining silently that she hadn’t been paying him attention for too long. Erend was suddenly one of those flies that hovered around fresh fruit in the summer and that she never seemed to be able to get rid of. 

"Don't hesitate to ask Marad or Erend if you have further questions” finished the unexpected royal audience, so she did, leaving Avad behind and walking with a determined step through the short corridor and stairs she had taken to get to the throne. The two men stood like two gloves protecting a pair of hands: Marad spoke and stared wanting to make you believe he knew more than he was saying, because maybe he really did know everything about you. Erend was, expectedly, Erend.

* * *

"Yeah. Those two got along." His lips moved as if even he, or particularly he, found it strange. "Some people say they shacked up, but I don't buy it. He seems a little skinny for her. Okay, some bad images are forming in my head...let's focus on finding her - and kicking Dervahl's ass." If Avad was too skinny, what about her? "I hope Marad's guy gets us something."

Aloy nodded with the eyes of someone thinking about the next move. Erend wasn't surprised when she said she had to go. Before he thanked her again, invited her to join them on the trip to Pitchcliff, asked her - him, not Avad - if she was willing to help again when she owed him nothing. 

He didn't say what he wanted. "Don't stand me up in Pitchcliff, okay? Ersa needs us." And what he said didn't sound like a question, but a command. She turned around as Marad had turned too to cross to the terrace, vanishing in a few steps.

"Considering you only wanted a few minutes of my Focus, I think I've earned a suggestion on where to eat something. Even better if it’s quick." Erend looked twice to be sure Marad's voice hadn't suddenly changed, that he hadn’t jumped out of anywhere. Aloy was still in front of him, with her body half-stretched and the curtness of someone who doesn't want to ask stupid questions but has to ask them. "It's not hard to find the one tavern in smaller places, but...you know, this is..._ too big _."

Her hand did a nonchalant flick and her eyes dared him to laugh. Erend swallowed. It had sounded very low, that last part, as if she wouldn’t admit to feeling lost to anyone else but him. "That depends. What do you want to eat?" She curled one brow. "How about raw fish?"

"Raw?" 

"Heh! I made the same face first time I heard of it, but the Banuk who have been here for a while prepare it in a special way, with Carja spices. I guess you could say it's a specialty of the new Meridian?" Aloy scratched the tip of her nose before nodding in disappointment. "How about something Oseram then? Picture this: a slow fire, a juicy piece of wild boar spinning above it for hours, absorbing the rub and smoke. The meat becomes so soft that it pel- "

He had just realized. Aloy had just realized there was more than just a chance to gobble up whatever could be hunted while traveling or whatever was on the menu of the tavern that was on hand that day.

"Or... you can follow me this time." Erend shook his shoulders as he chewed words. Nothing like a lazy shake to feign indifference. "I don't have a triangle like that, but after two years, I have every place in Meridian where you end up licking your fingers engraved here." First he pointed a finger at his head, then at his stomach. Aloy smiled as he put his finger back on his temple, pretending not to know which one of them decided.

“Don’t you have someone waiting for you in Pitchcliff?”

"I do, and I'd like to leave now, but most of my men... well, _ Ersa's men_, they have a family they want to say goodbye to before leaving for days. You never know, they might not come back." 

If Dervahl was behind it all, it wasn't someone he and Aloy could face alone, not without risking too much. Burying himself in the mountain of papers waiting for him in Ersa's office wouldn't make the day end sooner either. Plus, he was more than happy to take his hands off that pile of tediousness now that she was coming back. 

Erend scraped the ground with his boot. "You know, you could... come with me - I mean! With me _ and _the rest of the boys. I'm just saying we're going to the same place.” His gloves popped at each side of her face as if framing it, telling her to not to answer so soon. “Anyway, you brought my sister back to life, and we still have to celebrate your resurrection. Technically, this is the second time I've invited you to grab a bite, so we have a precedent that it works, and I say there's too much to feast on already. You won't regret it?"

Her mouth was almost a circle. Aloy placed a hand on each hip and slaughtered the horizon with her glare before biting her lip. "I thought you weren't the kind to keep your word."

"What?"

"You said you'd show me all this... several times if I remember correctly. And that you'd show me the Spire up close. This may be the last time you can abuse your authority as Captain, so..."

"Fire and spit, you remember all that, and leave out the drink or three I said I'd buy? Believe it or not, but I'm a man of my word. So... is that a yes?"

Aloy tilted her head. Nodded as if he had invited her to clean latrines, but nodded. Ersa was alive. Erend took a couple of long steps, almost jumps, before he realized Aloy had barely taken any.

"Hey, I get it, but I need some time at least to disappoint you? There's a place I want to take you, if we hurry we can get there before it gets packed. Let’s go?”

* * *

Aloy nodded like she just had, without being sure yet that she wanted to nod. The palace became a blur: bits of blue sky and pale stone revolved around Erend's hand; Erend's hand, that hand as big as Rost's, but so different. She had been a kid, that last time she held Rost's hand like that.

Erend was a storm bursting through the crowd amid shouts, asking questions she could not hear over the bustle that seemed to cover Meridian like a blanket at noon. No one was looking at them, at least not as Aloy would have expected: no one stared and claimed for order to the sky, nor pointed fingers at her Nora clothes, nor laughed. It was as if they were all cheering, smiling at their joined hands and getting out of the way as they slithered through Meridian.

How tightly did one squeeze a hand? Erend's seemed to want to slip out of hers if she didn't clench it very tightly. And how did anyone let go of a hand? If he had grabbed her so she wouldn't get lost in the crowd, there was no reason to let go in that street, or in the next.

Mother's Heart was as crowded as the narrowest alley in there, and even the stupor that built up in the most open spaces made her feel the Focus on her temple. It would have been enough to _tap tap _and look only at the highest heads to find Erend if she lost him. Erend wouldn’t know that, perhaps the Oseram held hands so freely, or the Carja did, or everyone. She wouldn’t know. Aloy didn't know what to do, so she did nothing. 

"This is it." The soles of his feet had probably become red-hot from walking so fast. Erend huffed and tore his gloves off when they entered the small restaurant with its narrow tables and walls covered with Banuk paintings. A place like that would never delight the exquisite Carja, but the triangles, circles and colorful figures made Aloy’s awe finally let go of his hand. He tried not to open his mouth too wide as his fingers stretched out. He had almost lost them.

It was too late when he realized what he had done. They were passing the street where the larger machine parts were sold. Aloy had scowled, looking at the undignified, dissected remains hanging from chains, exposed in the hope of attracting the highest bidder. He had tried to let go of her hand then, cursing inwardly until there was no noise but his obscenities in the world. It had been there, too, the beginning of the longest minutes of his week. 

Aloy loosened her grip so much that it was as if she had let go. He tried to check if it was true without using his eyes and being too obvious, slowly dropping his arm as he dismissed excuse after excuse because she wouldn’t believe them. Her fingers would turn into huge claws like a Thunderjaw's when he gave the third pull. 

At first, he was surprised. Aloy’s hold was stronger than Ersa’s. The swollen ego wouldn't let him see: all she wanted was to hold on to him; touching him, though, she was doing her best not to. The fifth time he wondered if he was the first person to hold her hand. It couldn’t be.

"Aren't you going to order?" Aloy blinked.

Erend examined her carefully as she absorbed there were places where you sat and someone came to take your order. He looked at her carefully again as she eyed the poor waiter, who stood under her suspicion as best he could. 

He didn't want to make her think the wrong thing, but he couldn't help chuckling when she turned nervously to look at the kitchen, waiting for someone to shout that they could pick up their plates and stop taking up precious space at the bar. If anyone knew how the taverns that welcomed travelers who were only passing were run, it was him. No one served you with obsequious smiles in those places.

"So?" 

"So what?" 

"Last time I saw you, you were rolling your ankles at full speed to go find Olin. I already said Ersa's alive. What about you?"

Aloy put her elbows on the table and her chin on the palms of her hand. Her cheeks swelled like blown glass. "I found him. And... spared him." 

There was a humming in her vowels, said with her lips tightly closed. Even She began to speak hastily when he expected to hear more. "I remembered what you said... about him being a friend." Her eyes pulled up to the ceiling, circling and staring above his head in a loop without going further down. Waiting for his hammer to fall on her as if it were a heavy judgment that she had no choice but to wait. "He fought the Corruptors as much as he could, and he seemed...worried about the outcome.”

"Well, if my voice is worth anything, I trust you made the right decision.”

"Do you hate Avad?" The food came then. Aloy paced her eyes over each plate, forgetting that she had asked him anything, hoping that he would finally explain what she could eat and how. 

"I don't hate him. Why do you think that?" She imitated him carefully, copying every detail of how he had caught a piece of barely dead fish before rubbing it into the spice mixture and putting it in his mouth, knowing she was watching. Erend rubbed his mustache discreetly into his hand. Aloy would definitely say nothing if something were to get stuck there.

"I don't... he's the Mad Sun-King's son, whom you called a cruel butcher. You don't think the Oseram he murdered would expect you to hate him?" 

"Why, you think Rost would rather you killed Olin?" She gulped gently before looking away. "The dead don't have to live, and living in peace is better than living in war. But... _ no_, it wasn't easy. Ersa understood long before I did that Dervahl's way wouldn't settle anything. Damn, it's probably the only useful thing I've done in my whole life even if it took me a while, thinking with my head for once.”

"I'd say your ability to avoid fruit is pretty good too." Aloy shut up like something had slipped out of her teeth. Maybe that's why she smiled twice as much when he joked too and their banter became a row of laughs. The corners of her mouth were still sticking out when she spoke again after a short silence. "I don't know. What Rost would have wanted. Olin betrayed you. And Ersa.”

"I would have understood, but not for me or Ersa, but for... just... you know. But violence is like a downward spiral. I understand more if you didn't kill him." Aloy took a slow breath in. Her fingers were thin and long, and made no noise as she tapped on the table. "What do you want?"

"What do you mean?"

"You spared him because that's what you wanted to do. That matters."

"You think so?"

"Don't you?"

"There are things that have to be done, whether you want to or not.” Her index nailed her determination to the table. "We must fulfill our duty." 

Erend ran his thumb over the edge of the plate where the spice powder was. He pouted and smiled. "Sure...is that something you say or something Rost said? Because that kind of talk would put anyone to sleep. Thing is, I've seen the sort of thing people do when they think so blindly that what they're doing is what they should be doing, and, fire and spit... I think I'd rather know what you want to do. At least your regrets are yours." 

"Only children do only what they want. And Rost said that too.” What she wanted? It never mattered, what she wanted. The world never listened, and only bent under the right thing, and the right thing was more important than anything else. It didn't matter who said it.

"Ersa would like you." Erend took another piece of fish and swallowed it without dipping it in that fine powder of yellow and red specks that made her eyes tear a bit. He smiled with only his mouth when his eyes rose and saw her looking at him. Aloy bit her right cheek.

"I'm going to. Kill Rost's murderer. It's just... it wasn't Olin. It's a man called Helis." 

"I've heard that name... if it's who I think it is, many would stand behind you if you did. Me first. Forgiveness is always a hard thing, but it's not always fair."

"So you're going to kill Dervahl?"

Erend looked at her so long that it became uncomfortable. “Me? Ha! Wait till you meet Ersa. You full?"

"Why, is it finally time for boar's ribs? This was good, but..." 

He stretched out on the chair, extending his arms with a smile that wrinkled his skin from his eyebrows to his hairline. "I knew you had good taste. Let's go, the best Oseram taverns are on the dock."

Meridian was a maze, and yet the more she followed in Erend's steps and tip and tricks, the more it made sense: Avad had tried to redress it by making random grants and modifying taxes, but each tribe seemed to have taken over a small plot of city. 

The market helped paint the picture, the Meridian that opened its doors to all, but the best Banuk craft shops were in the little alley between this house and that one, just like you could indeed be too-outlander for the “renewed” Hunter’s Lodge. The merchants were mostly Oseram, and those who carried too much gold were not to be trusted, always charging more. 

That is why the Oseram taverns were in Meridian Village, right on the dock, as if the first Oserams who had ventured there had known it necessary to separate business from pleasure, and that having water around would delight those who could not avoid fighting over a couple of pitchers of brew. He himself had ended up fisting in the river once.

Aloy felt like a long cloth with its tip stuck in a bucket of water: Erend would stop to tell the story of the woman who used to cry for his dead lover at this window or the one about the spirit in that fountain, she would ask him questions about the blue lamps that decorated the corners or about the fruits she hadn’t seen before.

If she was the rag, Erend was the water that wetted her little by little, telling her more than she dared imagine about how that huge city had been built on such a high and narrow mesa, and about how they lived there, with what conflicts, what advantages. The last drops that soaked her were two big jugs of dark ale that smelled like bread. Erend challenged her to take it down in one gulp with a too-confident smirk. She soon learned why he had tried to stop her and lamented when he saw most of it was gone.

* * *

"Are you sure you know how to work this?"

"Look, the worst that can happen is that it'll tip over. We're already soaked, and if anyone's going to drown, that's me. Besides, I don't think there's any other way to dry this out than to burn ourselves up in the Alight."

Erend lifted one foot and shook it vigorously. The water spurted out and exploded into shiny drops. Aloy laughed without a hint of guilt. She took everything as a task that had to be accomplished perfectly, whether it was holding his hand, taking up as little space as possible in a crowded lift so that someone else could make them squeeze even more, or chugging down a generous pint of brew that would knock any man down.

The outcome was the only possible one: she had started to stumble soon after, so he had guided her to the Royal Maizelands, knowing that if she fell, he could pretend it was the corn or pumpkins that had cushioned the blow. 

He didn't think anything of it when he saw her open her eyes wide. The complex irrigation system that supplied the crops was made up of ditches in the ground and wooden channels where clean water flowed, brought directly from the highest levels of the aqueduct. Aloy had jumped to her hands under a stream. Erend had taken off his scarf. It was a good idea, wetting the back of his neck, maybe washing off the heat from his face.

The first splash threw him off, the second one got him going. The third Aloy was laughing as if she had just discovered her body could feel that good and he was praying that no Vanguardsmen would see him running after her through the tall rows of corn, taking advantage of every new chance to fill the cup of his hands with more ammunition and soak her. They were dripping when they reached the barge.

"You started it," she said.

"Fire and spit, you drenched me before I could take a step!" 

"You made me drunk." 

"Hey, you didn't even dare try the Scrappersap, but... fair enough. Hop in? We don't want to miss the sunset, do we?"

Aloy looked up at the sky. Somehow the blue had turned into orange around the edges, and the clouds were not so white. They had spent the whole day together. 

"So your Vanguard steel makes you noisy, slow, and you can't even wet it. Have you ever thought of switching it?"

Aloy didn't know, but he had seen that smile a long time ago. She was the only red head among the angry Nora mob making a ruckus below his feet. His eyes had gotten stuck: underneath the flames, there was a girl smiling mischievously, as though she was just passing by and the whole thing was amusing her. 

Erend had to nibble his lip when he remembered the moment she told him her name: hair of fire, name out of a forge. He hadn’t needed more to want to know her better. It was a good memory, as surely would be seeing her lying on the first boat she rode and wetting her fingers as if her reflection moving was telling her to, or how leisurely they made their way up to the Alight, talking about everything and nothing. 

"Well...everything's bigger from up close, and this isn't the exception. Although your description then was better. A needle...poking the sky?" Like so many things, the view made her remember Rost. Mother's Heart also seemed larger from where they said goodbye.

"A blade thrust into the sky, reflecting the sun...it's something I've thought for a long while."

They were panting, and her stomach no longer fit into the narrow leather chest piece she was wearing. Aloy looked back. The climb had been harder than it could have been if she hadn't been so full. There was no one else there at all. Erend followed her without a word as she walked aimlessly, following the golden lines on the ground.

His boots came off when she sat right in the middle of the space. Aloy leaned back and sighed as he began removing all his armor. The sky was the same color as the huge bags of spices that made Meridian smell, the Spire was so tall that she could not see its top, and Erend stood beside her with his arms and legs as outstretched as she had them. The stone on the floor was giving her all the warmth it had gathered during the day. 

Her hands slid under her hair and spread it around her head. Erend had done the same with his vest and the pieces that covered his legs to make them dry. She narrowed her eyes. "I can't stop seeing it, even if I turn my head - it's in the corner of my eye no matter where I look."

Erend didn't notice her looking at him. He was looking at her the way he had when he thought she wasn’t noticing - with a dumb, bold grin. The dying sun made his earring shine. " I'm sure you've noticed it, you can see it from a long way off. When I'm far away... it stands out in the distance. Reminds me where I'm supposed to go back to."

"It feels like home, then." Rost's cabin was like that. The many paths that lead there, the yellow rope spread through the valley; the stones, grouped in specific ways. Signs, like cobblestones that guided her home.

"Maybe. I don't know." She decided to turn, find his eyes. They weren't looking at her now, but the sky. The Spire was guarding Meridian amidst pale shades of dusk, accompanied only by wisps of clouds that drifted away.

"That's good. Not everyone has a place to return to.”

"Like you?" The half-circle was so fast it caught her off guard: Erend caught her eyes with that something that made them stick to his. "A whole new life, if you want to. I meant it. I do now. I already showed you around, making introductions is the easy part...we should wait until Ersa returns, though. She knows more idio-...uh, _ noblemen _than me."

"I can imagine why." Aloy slipped her eyes to his chest. They'd been on the floor for minutes, but they were still breathing slowly, laboriously. His eyes looked more like the steel he liked the more she inspected them. His breathing became heavier. "So you like this? Having to introduce me to nobles if... I wanted to stay here."

Erend stretched out his hands over his head and yawned. His eyes were watery when he faced her teasing. "I hate it. But it's the same everywhere. You think it's different in my tribe? The council of Ealdormen sucks the same. I met you because I had to check that Avad's diplomat made sure the trading routes running through Daytower fare better. You should have seen the matriarchs arguing about money while trying not to mention it."

"You're not good at it either." Aloy slid one foot across the floor, feeling the sole rise as it passed over the uneven surface. "Doing as you please. You hate diplomacy but you decided to liberate Meridian. That was a long time ago, too."

"I didn't liberate Meridian. It was Ersa. Avad and Ersa. I just fought."

"Like everyone else who fought then? Just another freebooter doesn't end up as Captain of the Vanguard. I don't know him, but considering how he is allied and not with the same people, I doubt Avad would give you the job just because you're Ersa's brother."

"You're a tough one, huh? Can' t fool you."

"Why would you want to fool me?"

"I don't... not with you." His jaw was full of lines. "Not that I can, apparently. I don’t know either, why I ended up where I am. It makes no sense, but no one listens." 

"Maybe. Are you not worried? About Ersa. You haven't said anything."

"I bet she's more worried about me than I am about her. But yeah, I'm worried about Ersa, why wouldn't I? But I can't do anything about it right now, and she's fine. She always is."

"Are you always this... carefree?"

"You mean happy? Because you should try it sometimes. Rost isn't going to come out of anywhere and beat you with a stick for enjoying the moment. Fire and spit, life is hard as it is without trying to make it worse, you know?"

"Let's just say he'd do that if he saw me like this. Your boots should be dry by now."

It was that what he liked in the way she moved: no motion was superfluous and every effort had a purpose. Aloy walked to his armor. She grabbed one boot, shook it, did the same with the other. No one touched someone else's armor like that, nobody would have said it so plainly that he hadn't fought for that so-called peace in which he had struck it lucky. 

"You know, I... I'm happy that you're coming to Pitchcliff with us," Erend said. "And yes, I'm glad you didn't kill Olin, alright? I know what he did, but he's not a bad guy."

"Well...you're right. We're going to the same place. It makes sense. Right now though, we're going back on foot.”

"I'm not complaining, but it wasn't _ that _bad."

"Sure. Instead of taking half an hour, we could still be in the boat while you try to figure out how to make it go in the right direction.”

* * *

“So...here we are." 

“I...had a good time, thanks for showing me around. And no more alcohol for me from now on.”

"Sure about that? I thought I'd bring a couple bottles to brighten up the nights on the road. Where are you staying? Since you're around Meridian Gate, we can meet here tomorrow too. I'll let my men know."

“I'll camp outside, so I'm okay with anything." He frowned.

"Wait, are you sober? I thought you were staying somewhere in Meridian!”

"It's fine? I set traps, or sleep in a tree. I've been sleeping like that for weeks before reaching here."

"Hammer to steel...just...there's a fine tavern close to my house. Nice beds, vigorous breakfast. We can meet there and eat before leaving?” Aloy wanted to shook her head. He wouldn't let her. "I won't sleep knowing you're out there in a tree while I'm in a cozy Carja bed."

"Like they are so different."

Erend raised his hands, shaking his brows. "Trust me on this, girl, can’t compare."

Meridian was, among other things, the most expensive place Erend had ever known: Aloy kept nodding absently as they left streets and alleys behind, intending for him not to notice how she reached into one of the bags around her hips discreetly. He didn't have that many shards left either, not after Aloy insisted on paying half for everything they ate and drank, so they ate and drank too much. There were still too many things he wanted to show her.

There were sections in Meridian where the Oseram gathered to satisfy the Carja who knew which streets to avoid, and the Oseram who looked, from time to time, for a place where they did not feel misplaced. Yet so few buildings had the rough wood and worn metal doorways typical of the Claim that Aloy had seen them all in half a day.

"It's over there. See?" 

"You live around here?"

"Almost, a little more to the outside. But yeah, nearby." Like every time, Aloy’s shoulders bounced back when she realized he was holding the door for her. 

Entering Grud's tavern felt like stepping on the battered stone steps and plunging into the past: the place was always half empty despite being where all the Oseram on their way stayed. The wooden beams were thick and dark, with no engravings with delicate details, and the things and the hallways were wide and sturdy, with wide seats so that good armor could fit into them.

But like all good things, it was made up. There weren't groups of lowlifes looking for unwanted children to snatch up and turn into cannon fodder, that breed of scum that grew out of raids. There were no sullen looks judging Ersa's armor, nor the sadness of war lurking on the corners.

Erend let Aloy stare at the room full of chairs under the high ceiling and walked to the bar. "One night, give the lady a clean bed. And breakfast for two." 

Erend turned to show the wrinkled hand that was about to take his shards who was the lady who was going to use the room. Aloy was looking out the window overlooking the jungle. She turned around.

"What are you doing?" Aloy said. He only needed to let the metal pieces fall.

"Fire cleans better than water, but we don't need to build a forge here, do we, son? See, one lustful night, one bed? Aye! But a big and more costly one, and you're so large you may need two beds! And two breakfasts. That'll be..." 

The little wizened thing sinking under the steel studs of her headband gave Aloy a wink. "By the forge, Grud! The two females who joined the Vanguard last month don't count as women, and I didn't stay! I'll stop bringing people here if you keep embarrassing me every time...I'm only coming to have breakfast in the morning.”

Grud cackled. An open hand slap against the counter brought a cheeky smile to her mouth.. "By the heat of the forge, then! Stop bringing lovely ladies here all the time! When are you going to find a wife, Erend? His eyes are more wrinkly than mine and he’s only twenty-four! Always busy this one, but without Ersa, he’s all alone!.”

Aloy nodded politely as Grud leaned against the bar and examined her from head to toe. When Aloy looked at him, Erend was sure he wouldn't find her there the next morning.

"Such hair! Haven't had a Nora around in a long time, aye, and the last one was tad gone in the head, hunting down eight that killed his daughter. Sad man, that one.” 

“Haven’t heard of him.” 

“Oh, sweet child, that was long ago, indeed. Steel to my soul, still had all my teeth! May be gone from this world, as almost everyone I've ever known…” 

Erend put both hands over the counter and stood between the two women. "How much?" Grud had a sharp look at his annoyed grunt.

"Really want to do that, son?" His hand was overflowing with shards. "I've tried to give you time to think, but there's no nail that goes into that hard noggin of yours...oh, there she goes! Go after her, you oaf!" 

“Damn!” He caught her going a mile with each stride. Erend ran. “Look, I'm not a chaste Sun-priest, but that sounded a lot worse than it is!”

Aloy' stopped short. "Guess I'm  _ too savage  _ for you? First you make faces when I tell you I've been sleeping fine around Meridian for days, and now you're even paying for me?"

"I'm sorry. I know-"

"That you're an ass? I heard you say it earlier, don't worry.”

"Aloy, wait! Fire and spit, girl, I'm gonna drown if you don't give me a break!"

"Now we know all that metal slows you down." 

Erend sighed. One chance. He had one chance. "Look, Ersa's room is empty, and you can lock it if you want. Besides, I've got boar bacon and corn in my house. You stole half my bag when we ate popped corn earlier. No one pays, no one sleeps outside."

"You noticed!"

"By the forge, you were eating like a Ravager!

Aloy kicked the ground. He lost all hope. "I've been told worse things, so... how much corn are we talking about?"

Maybe those who said good things and bad things came in threes were right. Maybe Aloy looking at him as if he too was the strangest thing that had happened to her in a long time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I tried to imagine foods that are possible in their world considering what you can see in the market at Meridian. As always, thanks for reading :)


	5. Erend's house

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's mention of child abuse. It's only mentioned, but it's there.

Damp clothes waved next to slightly frayed banners, looking for if not sunshine —not on the wires that hung far from the roof of one building to another— perhaps some breeze. Erend slowed down and used his hands to explain as if he felt the need to excuse the shorter buildings facing the jungle. Meridian didn’t look the same. There lived those who didn’t wear layers and layers of silk or were not as wealthy. Usually both.

The inhospitable looks of Mother's Crown were not those of Mother's Heart, nor was the distanced stares of the few Nora she had known in Mother's Rise, used to being no more than a crossing point for those who never stayed. She nodded when he said there were cities inside the city: that junction was a blue settlement in silent rebellion, where the few Banuk adorned their windows with bluegleam. A bunch of laughing drunks —at any hour of the day, preserving all the good traditions of The Claim— pointed out the street where the five Oseram taverns let in the mesa clustered. The Carja they passed by did not wear such brightly colored cloths. They also didn't shrink their noses with contempt at the sight of Nora's handiwork.

Then the ground ended. "Meridian ends here?" 

"To the front, but..."

The stairs that took them inside the mesa were only slightly wider than her hips. When Erend stopped blocking her view, the roaring jets that shone under the sun when you looked at the buildings from afar sprang above them: high arches made of water grew out of the wall in her left and crossed large arcs made of rock in the wall on her right. There was the drone of water flowing, but the streams fell so far down she heard no impact. The Liberation had taken over the city through the aqueducts, and he explained how he'd recognize the smell anywhere. Aloy lifted her head to let the mist cool her neck. The clatter of her arrows echoed off the walls; a few dozen men covered in steel had had to make a racket. Erend smiled as if they were hidden corridors only few could transit, and he had made her one of the lucky.

"Are you lost?" 

"Fire and spit, on the way to my house?" He pointed down: a path, carved from the side of the mesa itself, grew below their feet. It led downhill, to a small row of wooden houses perfectly lined up between Meridian and Meridian Village. 

"You do all this every morning?" Aloy said. The houses hovering at the side of the elevators looked Carja in that more ramshackle style of Meridian Village; so unlike the tall, endless buildings crammed with small balconies that made her crane her neck in silent awe.

"Meridian's a lot higher, but ... hey, my house floats. Remember how the Carja began building between big chunks of rock? These are relics of the past." Erend pointed at the beams under the closest house as if the fact that a house was not on solid ground was the only reason anyone would choose a house. "There are many mornings of regret, but then I go out on the porch and take in the silence and the view. I think you’ll like it." 

The Spire took his words and made them true. Meridian Village and the wide lake in its front protected the tower by its feet, and the long expanse of lush stretched all the way to the right and all the way to the horizon. The late sunset shone over all things in dark orange slights. Erend pointed at one of the houses, waving his arm languidly. Aloy nodded. The porch that surrounded the house was made of reddish, fragrant wood. A long stretch of mesa covered in vine separated them from the waterfall falling furiously to death below.

His fingers moved nervously on his belly. "Whoa, there! Sometimes my vest swallows up the key." The lock woke up to hoarse noise, and the door swung wide, stretching after a long sleep. "Well... make yourself at home and all that." 

Aloy stopped under the frame. She had never entered anyone's home, not one she had been invited to. It smelled of embers and leather, and there was something sweet to it, like the smell she had caught in the poorly lit Oseram tavern they had been at earlier. Everydayness had a sound in there, that of Erend taking off his boots, unbuckling his vest in the dark. He left his hammer where he always left it by the door without even looking, knowing it wouldn’t fall.

"Sit. I'm going to... check on some things." There were lights, more and more lights as Erend ran around, turning on one after another, tossing things inside the chimney.

"This is Oseram.” The table wedged between the two couches was stocky, with short legs and dark wood. Heavy metal rings hung from its sides. Carja and Oseram combined in every corner with no sign as to whether it was Erend or Ersa who had decided on how much of each tribe should be in the house and had followed a plan to neatly mix the two. "And...weapons?" 

Aloy settled down on the sofa. Her feet hurt, but the soft Carja carpet under them was as fluffy as the ones she had walked on at Olin's house. It was strange, that Carja belief that feet had to tread on squishy things, things you would never tread on in the wilds. It was stranger that Erend seemed to agree: everything had been chosen to be comfortable. The couch could only be a huge couch that swallowed you when you leaned back, so she sank more and her spine groaned.

The stairs were not like those she knew well, with steps made of jagged fine timber that hurt the bridge of your foot, and things weren't huddled against the one table like her bed. There was space to move not freely, but through the purpose-built alleys that ran between the furniture. There was no point in having so many things. Aloy stood and walked to the chimney. The ledge was cramped with more senseless stuff and two ornate daggers.

"Works of the finest forges.” Erend handed her a brimming cup of water. “I bought most of them myself, but Ersa gifted me a few, and sometimes a friend brings me one."

"You’ve had them for a long time?" 

"Some? Wouldn't have had anywhere to put them before." He nodded with relief, happy that there was nothing else to check, and went upstairs. Aloy followed, stopped herself. She was not sure what she could or could not do in that house.

"You didn’t have a place to stay?"

"Uh...sort of." Above wasn't so big that she couldn't understand what he was saying. It made her nod. One door closed and another one opened. Aloy looked at his face when he bent his knees and tried to hide his bare feet inside the flowy fabric of his slacks. Perhaps it was the way he was half-sliding through the stairs with one hand on each handrail, but he looked at least half as big without his armor. "We do, actually, but we’ve lived on our own since young.” Erend hunched his shoulders and then made a small leap. He scratched his arm. Aloy nodded again, distracted by his fingers leaving red lines on his shoulder. He had more scars than she did. “You chase war, as a freebooter? War is homeless." 

His words brought back Dervahl's presence, Ersa's absence, the shadows that clouded his face sometimes when they didn't know what to say and the instant dragged. The various weapons led them around the room, guiding them through the details, the complex forms, the ornate blades or handles. 

"They're nice to look at, but they don't seem very useful." 

He took a long step, passing behind her. "They were made to show off the smith's skill, but you could kill more than one man with any one of them if you try enough. Besides... not everything has to be useful." 

"What's the point then? If they have no use." 

The collar of his shirt was half open, with the cords untied and the fabric making a warped triangle. The groove that ran down his chest was covered in sparse, dark hair. Some stood out on the cloth. Aloy wanted to shove them, get them under the fabric, stop them from making her stare. Erend touched her face with his eyes, patiently.

"They say the best in things in life aren’t the useful ones?”

“Who says that?”

“Everyone? They also say something different about what's most important. What is it for you? Honor...love?” He looked away. “Not shards, I bet?”

Honor without usefulness, love without being worthy. No one had looked at her with respect until she showed what she could do, until they saw the Mark of the Seeker, until they knew how she hunted. How she killed those that had hurt the tribe. It had been her arrows, her Focus and her strength that had made Teersa believe she could fix the Corruption of that door, what had made Sona trust her. What had made Erend ak her for help.

Aloy followed the Oseram marks -those every other Oseram seemed to have- that had been impressed on the blade hung between the two. Weapons had to kill. “I'd rather be good for something, and what I hear is a fire crackling in the kitchen." 

* * *

Erend made sure the knife made a crisp sound against the cutting board. "There won't be enough for later if you keep doing that." Half of one of her lips disappeared under the other. "Just saying."

He had never cut such fat pieces of meat, nor did they make that much noise when he threw them into the huge pan that showed all the blacksmith’s hammering and the various blows it had accumulated over the years. It was one of the few things they had always kept, he and Ersa, always checking to make sure it did not rust because the last bits of their roots would wither if it did. The flames reached high when he poured some more blaze, doing their job. He pretended not to see her steal another piece of crispy bacon. 

Meridian’s and the stove's heat had become his ally for once: a drop of sweat kept pooling on her temple. When it became many more, Aloy moved her hands. The belt with the small leather bags gave way first; the blue and red-edged ragged cloth unwrapped her hips, crumpling into her left palm. The brown piece on her torso went not below her navel as he had thought, but to just above her thighs, losing width to form a thin braid that guided his eyes down to between her legs. As if someone had decided to choose that exact length knowing he would curse at it one day. 

Aloy dumped her things on the small kitchen table before sitting on it. She had entered through the door on tiptoe. It wasn't possible to hear, but he had heard her fingers gently touching her Focus,letting it tell her all the things he was worried about. Perhaps it could know that the weird smell was abandonment. It had been strange, sitting on the armchair only to think the house meant to cure Ersa's homesickness hadn’t enough time to even try. Two years weren’t many after a life being chased away. Less. She had been spending more and more nights in the palace, and the barracks had sheltered him on the ones when making the winding way back home would bring sobriety back too soon. There was always a tavern to stay in until dawn if everything else failed. 

“I thought people didn’t cook inside.” Aloy’s feet dangled under the table. “Doesn’t it smell?” 

"This pipe over there takes away the smell. It works sometimes? So...you cooked outside. In the cold?”

She nodded. This made him nervous. It also made him nervous that she felt him eyeing her hips, and her eyes on him, her frowning, and her jumping off the table and putting her face under a simple pipe. Erend moved a slice of bacon around the pan. It was no use, trying to predict which drawer she would, without fear, attack next. 

She had asked if she could go upstairs. When he found her climbing the steps two at a time, she started climbing faster, as if the tongs covered in the bacon’s fat were a weapon. She had waltzed inside his bedroom, flung herself out because he couldn't hide his surprise: she wouldn’t go in there because no one would, so he hadn’t tidied it. Aloy had stopped fidgeting with about everything, and only sometimes moved around before taking a peek to see if he was keeping an eye on her. He always did, so she always caught him.

Aloy lifted her chin as if to say “I saw”, but instead she said, “We ate outside too. Spending too much time inside makes you lazy.” 

"Uh...I guess. Wait, when it snowed as well? Damn, I'm glad my plan to have us eat on the porch might make you feel more at home then?" She made something between smiling and a scoff. "How about a bath if you’re worried about the smell? I’ll be done with this when you’re done." 

A question fiddled in her mouth, jumping from lip to lip and from cheek to cheek. “I wouldn’t mind rubbing the day off me.” 

"Upstairs, the first door. You might have to work the handle a few times until the water comes out." 

"The handle?" Aloy looked at the door wanting to see beyond. Erend pulled the pan away from the fire. When he left the piece of leather he had used not to get burned over the counter, he realized why. Outside, right out front, the waterfall roared. 

Using strangers' bathrooms often made you feel more dirty than clean, so he had checked his three times: the varnish coating the hardwood of the tub gleamed, and if there was any hair between the joints, he couldn't see it. The last pair of clean towels were those silk ones that didn't dry but Ersa liked to use, and the fire heating the rocks creaked rhythmically in the small chimney. Aloy walked around the tub. He checked because she squinted again, but it wasn’t full of unmentionable sins. Her eyes became smaller when he coughed. The dry, fragrant leaves the Carja used when bathing and that had been collecting dust for ages had already filled the bath with steam. It never failed to make him dizzy, those burners exuding sweet-smelling fumes they hung everywhere.

"Try not to die slipping and you're good to go,” he said.

"And here I was, thinking about jumping down from the stool, savage style. So everyone here has these... giant buckets?"

He glanced at the bathtub. "Not all of them— "

"And bathrooms this big? Olin’s was too.”

"You see that handle there? The one that sticks out? Well, grab it and..." He made a circular motion with his wrist. Aloy caught the metal piece. He put the small pot next to his feet under the pipe and grinned: a thin stream of clean water was flowing into the vase. Aloy made the noise of seeing something you hadn’t imagined.

"How does it work?" 

"Just a slanted screw inside a tube. The water comes up from the waterfall when you roll it, so keep at it. I told you right? It pays to have connections. Only the houses closest to the palace and the large fountains are well supplied. Armies cost money and Jiran put every shard into the raids, so the system that moves the water is a bit rusty.” Some water spilled over the fire when he moved the pot into it. “Avad hopes to fix it in a few years. Keep an eye on the water?”

Aloy hadn’t said anything when he made her change places, but he had made a mistake. Erend kept pushing the handle, watching his hand turn and turn. He cranked his head around. Aloy grabbed the undergarments he had hated before as if she wasn't sure what to do. He escaped to the thing around her neck. 

"Won’t that damage if you wet it?" A plain brown top answered most of his doubts. The leather clung to her thighs the same it did around her hips. 

"It’s fine.” Aloy grabbed the pendant. “It was Rost's." 

"Looks...good on you." Aloy left her clothes on the stool with her fingers so tight he thought they would go back to her chest if she dared lift her hand. The almost full bathtub could interest him if he kept trying. 

"What are you doing?" 

He moved around her, eyes stuck on the floor. A second rock fell into the small circular iron cell with short legs. "This way there's less water to boil. The rocks stay warm with the embers too, so I can use them for myself later." 

"Are you planning to eat me?" The last rock fell instead of being put down on top of the others. Erend groaned when a spark burnt his hand. "Add some spices and I'll make a nice soup." 

"Fire and spit, wait till you get in to talk! But...I have spices. Open that box. It's...women's stuff.”

"Women's stuff?" Erend picked up the long metal handle and tucked the caged rocks in the water, making sure that the handle stayed upright so she could remove them. Aloy stopped fidgeting with the bottles when the water fizzed. 

"Yeah, look...this...Valley's Blush oil? You put this in the water, a bit? Bet you'd smell good after, and this..."

Her gaze tangled with the laces of his shirt again. There would be more space if she sat on him, and the room would remain heated for longer, and he would remember her when the smoke from the burners smelled and he'd like them. Erend moved to the edge of the bathtub and did not stop talking when she sat down next to him, blurting how little he knew about the soaps, oils, and the colored powders in the box Ersa had told him never to touch. 

"This isn't Ersa's?" He nodded. "Erend, I--"

"She's going to smash my head if she finds out you had your first Carja bath and didn't use like...all of this. Trust me." 

"All?"

* * *

"Just drink it slowly, you drank too fast earlier? I spent the last of my chillwater so I could offer it to my guest?" He pronounced each word as if he had been waiting a long time to say that. Two colorful bottles, with wide bottoms and thin necks like those hanging from market stalls, moved under his hands around the table. The smell of the brew was sweet. She couldn’t say why it was important if they were more or less close to the bowl filled with popped corn. Little white puffs were coated with bacon chunks and red dust. "So...can we have some soup of Aloy for dinner? You don't look cooked enough for me.” 

She didn't know whether to move or not, whether to move her arms or not. Her hands dropped to the flanks of her hips, probing. Two times she had gone back for her leather waistcoat. Both times her fingers had decided to let go of it in Ersa's bed: he had seen her already. Aloy had run back upstairs before he could hear her for the third time: his eyes answered to her summons, clawing to her breasts, reading the width and height of her shoulders. It had been right to tighten the laces so tightly. Anything could have happened if the leather wasn't holding her trunk down. Erend leaned so she could sit on the couch.

"It wasn’t bad." Her body shrank as he grew: Erend stretched his arms over the armrests. A pair of light shorts crumpled up in the middle of his thighs. 

"Was it too hot? " 

"No." The leather creaked under the soles of her feet. 

"So? Look...I don't want you to be uncomfortable, and it looks like you are. We can go back to Grud’s if— "

"It's... different." 

His fingers made a swishing, from left to right, on the cushion over his crotch. He moved it impatiently from time to time, making her follow the stumbling, and his hands moving, and it filled her mind. Perhaps his hands were as rough as hers, and the warmth of the fireplace was soft, smoother than the towels she had wrapped herself in. Perhaps her armor had scratched for the first time because her skin was too oiled. The oil had made Ersa's bed even more slippery, and her to slid when it sunk. When she figured how to tell Erend she had broken something, she saw the mattress had become as fluffy as ever after she stood up. 

"Missing the Embrace, really? I mean, we do things...differently here."

"The cabin I grew up in is just a house without Rost." Her voice had complained slightly, but he just nodded. It irked her, how she could finally whine slightly and he was thinking of taking her back to Grud’s. 

"Then?" His torso lengthened, pulling his muscles together like the parts of a chain. He grabbed the two bottles. Erend took a long gulp as if he had been waiting all day to lie on that couch and drink that brew. She drank. It tasted bitterer than the one she had drunk before. "Don't like the weather?" 

She was a savage who knew nothing, he who showed her all the wonders she had not asked to see, all the ways in which Meridian made her feel small she had not asked to feel. "Comforts and distractions. Comforts are weaknesses. All of this..." 

“Right.” He wasn't smiling anymore. "I've heard that before... not from a Nora, but I knew a Banuk once. Let’s say it’s not my thing, thinking suffering makes you better than the rest." She scowled. Erend drank. Watched her. Drank again. "I won't say I'm the best guy in the whole place, but I get up every day and help someone. I can't come home at night and do this? You think I'm weak? That Ersa's weak?"

"I didn't say that." 

"But you did. You think the rest of us have trouble washing if there's not a steaming bathtub? When I have to travel for days to the Embrace I wash in a river and enjoy the view, and when I'm at home I cover myself with hot water and blow bubbles with my mouth. You can do both." He blew as if he couldn't imagine she had done the same thing in that huge tub where she could stretch her legs, feeling that her body was made for that sort of pleasure. "Isn't that thing in your ear a comfort? No one else can do the things you do."

"The Focus helps me do what I have to do. Maybe you should remember you wouldn't have me here if it wasn't for it." 

"That's what you say, maybe it does a thousand things, maybe that's all that makes you so damn special.”

He answered her summons, becoming the side of her that had sat down on the bed again to feel it bounce, the one she had wanted to shame and it was done, the damage, so it crept in all the words she didn't say. The waterfall sounded, and if she sharpened her ear the noises of Meridian Village’s night — the music, the laughter— rose from below. “There," Aloy said. "Now you can stop pretending you’re interested in something else.” 

He looked up, going for the Focus with his fingers, stopping before they touched the white metal glowing orange from the fire. “You've...you've seen..."

Erend sat upright at once, moving away from her, looking at the stairs as if someone had nailed his eyes to the steps. She could tell. The Focus was on his temple, but she could see the letters changing when he turned, telling what each object was. That it wasn't so easy. Not what he expected. He sat. His eyes wavered. The intrigue of his want was no more when she realized. 

"Idiot." 

“What? Why? No wonder you called it seeing the unseen!”

"What, Erend, a purple... _block? _ You can see _enemies_ with the Focus. You can see through walls! Is that the only thing you notice?" 

"What, nobody mentioned this before? I know you Nora sleep in communal lodges, but th-"

"I haven't shown the Focus to anyone else, so I can't tell you what the Nora think." 

“Yeah, you didn't show it to Rost?” 

"Rost? Trying a tainted thing? Are you going to ask if I tried with Lansra too?”

Cursed things would keep her away from the tribe even if she won the Proving. When the Focus became who she was, Rost said it more, and the sore grew where she kept all that made her sure the answer would be that she was not wanted because she was strange, unlikeable, and that her mother had known she'd be. 

"Wait! Wait - I'm sorry. And just for the record.” She didn’t want to be touched, nor her throat to close up because someone could touch her, nor it to feel good, being grabbed as if he didn't want her to go. “You could crush this trinket and I would still be sitting here all night if you stay for the ride."

Aloy felt that she couldn't blink, that if she blinked he was going to look at her, and if he looked at her and saw inside of her she was going to grab her things and leave. "I don’t look. And it’s not like you have something I haven’t seen before." 

Erend laughed, and then there was no getting away from proving that the purple blocks were, indeed, just purple blocks. He sat after she sat, then he kept stirring, finding things she couldn't see in the edges of the ceiling's paneling. Maybe the impulse to leave could be seen and he was seeing it pooling under her heels and didn't want to acknowledge it. Her toes resisted. 

The air smelled of nothing in Maker’s End, and these last days when she slept she was there and it wouldn’t let her breathe. Erend would say it was too far if she told him how far she had traveled; nod because it didn’t make sense that her mother had lived hundreds of years ago. Perhaps he would joke, and she would find a reason to smile when she felt again how quick it was to say _a thousand years_ and how dead they made those who lived before them. But she said nothing: Erend would appease her doubts and they would go amok, believe that strange man. Sylens, and his stories about frozen people. 

"I found this in Maker's End."

“Damn.” He sank on the sofa. Raised his hand. She couldn't tell if he was scared to touch the hologram or not. “These are the things you mentioned, right? They look just like you said. What...what does it say?” 

"It's an Old One's...Focus? That's their glyphs." 

“Old One’s glyphs.” His lips moved slowly. He smiled, then smiled again. “And you know how to read them?"

"There's a purple shape…” She made sure to point next to her head. “Here. There's something written in white. My name." 

"Huh. And you can see my name? When you use it?" 

When he began to stand, she hesitated. Aloy reached out to press the Focus. His cheek and her fingers jerked. "I know it. Keep it. Walk. Do something." 

He stumbled when the Focus made old glyphs appear on top of the new ones over the book he had opened. When he shouted that he could see her from upstairs and ran downstairs, she hid a smile. When he went out onto the terrace and dropped a string of surprising curses at the number of bodies he could see, she covered her eyes, half-embarrassed, without making a noise: she had never known it was a bad thing to see them. She looked at the floor and he to the ceiling.

"With the number of things she signs, Ersa has to have ink somewhere, but..." Erend moved to the closest beam. The tip of the knife went into the wood cleanly. The metal scraped the wood. "Like this, see?" 

"That's...permanent." The fine line he had made could’ve been a bleeding wound on someone about to die.

"It isn't. But yeah." 

"I can show you later in the ground, there's n-" 

"Hey, who wouldn't want their name written in...Old One's glyphs on a column in their house?"

"Everyone?"

"Write yours too, I want to see it." His elbow leaned against the wall. He waited, checking that she wouldn't pull out an extra Focus from inside her hair to trick him.

It wasn't not true that the purple blocks were just purple blocks. Erend's purple block didn't stare, following her every move, studying her closely as she held the knife in her hand trying not to mess up the sticks of his name even more. She had written things, short things, sometimes, with a stick on the wet ground after it rained or on the dry ground when it was summer and the Embrace turned into a smiling valley. But the knife was heavy, and the letters she drew were shaky. Erend's breath was wet and brushed against her wrist when he moved about.

His fingers touched the letters, the ones on the wood, and the ones only he saw. “Let’s say — just let’s say you didn’t just memorize it. Who taught you? Doubt there are many who know what's written here." His palm tapped over the names of the two, one on top of the other. 

"As far as I know... just you and me." Erend crumpled his fingertips over the tainted wood. As if she hadn't made a mess. "The Focus gives names to the things you see. It took a while...but there's a pattern between the glyphs and the sounds."

"Sounds...more complicated than that, but okay. So...just you and me?" She knew she would remember that proud smile for days, that it would bother her. “You've shown me already, so spit it out. All of it." His finger pointed to the food, then raised to the door. He smiled again. She wished she hadn’t seen it.

* * *

With one more blanket and a fire, they could have made a tent and camp on the porch. Piling blankets had made looking at her stop being an endless repetition of the same mistake. They had sat down against the railing, their feet hanging over the hollow. The Spire shone eerily blue under the moon.

"So... this...thing of you and your mother, the hologram?" He was sure she had pronounced it differently. "The Eclipse have them too?" Aloy was not lying, but her story had holes, those he had heard in the times she looked at him as if she couldn’t tell when or how he would betray her. She kept making him want to know them, her secrets. "Well, knowing you, I'm sure you'll come to understand." 

"You know me?"

"Better than anyone now? I mean—"

"Rost’s dead." Her silence chewed him like she was chewing the corn, and that the corn had more wits than he did. "I hadn't thought of that."

“Yeah, that...was stupid. Forget it?” Erend raised his bottle. Aloy looked at it, waiting, and he saw that she didn't understand. He touched her elbow to make her lift hers. They looked to opposite sides. "Give mine a nudge if you agree."

"That it was stupid or that it was forgettable?" 

"Both?" Clay clinked against clay. "Anything you want to know? In return for it being me?" 

Aloy turned the bottle between her fingers. "Why do you drink? You said you have since before Ersa disappeared. Rost drank once a year..." She nodded, agreeing with his surprise. "Always the same die, every year. I don't know why, but he made me stay inside, or go away. I thought people drank because they were sad.”

"So I drink because I'm happy?

"You don't? Ersa's alive, you know how to find her. Your side won, and even if you stop being Captain, you are a King's friend. This is nice, the breeze. Not much noise. And your bathtub is huge." Aloy raised her brows to let him know they could tease each other with what had happened already. "Between noon and now you've drunk six or so of these." 

She waited. You could only wait after asking questions like that, and there weren't that many ways to say he had more of who he wanted to be than what he had of who he didn't. "I don't. Not when I drink...like that."

"Then why?"

"I'm Oseram. We drink, and by our standards, that is not a lot, but…it's been worse for a couple months. You know how nails stick out? Tried several hammers, none did the trick. Ersa had to do nasty stuff to keep us alive. I'd rather...have her think I'm a drunk than..." He could see Meridian Village through his fingers. Erend leaned more on the railing and stretched them out, opening his hand, blurring his vision and letting the lights become fuzzy. 

He rested his chin on his elbow: a pair of half-lit green eyes looked at him. Maybe it'd do it, telling her that he groaned at every other herd of Grazers getting lost and wrecking this or that crop. The squares with plants all looked the same to him, and the days were like the roots arranged in orderly rows just like her fingers were aligned on the banister, tidily supporting her chin. "Rost trained you to survive all sorts of things, right? Don’t make that face, I wish half the Vanguard had half your training." 

"You guys are bad?"

"No, but we are mercenaries, trained by getting dirty. When you're a freebooter you get paid to fight, not to serve a man, even less...an ideal. Imagine if you had to stay here every day and Avad paid you a salary. You would end up... what, running after thieves until they implored to be jailed themselves?" 

"I'd just leave."

"Exactly.”

"But Ersa made you stay." 

"Now imagine all the things Rost taught you but the opposite. As if he had tried as much to stop you from training. That was my father. Ersa...soon after the Liberation, the Council of Ealdormen forbade Vanguardsmen from inheriting or leaving inheritance while in service. You get paid well, die far from home. The shards go to waste. She had to make twice the effort than any of us, always, even to keep us together."

Erend grimaced as the sludge on the bottle’s bottom washed over his tongue. He never hid their past because he would always feel pride of what Ersa had gone through, but it never tasted sweet, and he didn't make efforts to lay it all down. But Aloy just stared ahead, nodding, and Ersa didn't deserve to be tainted by some stupid soaps. "My tribe is not like yours. My father...there is an old belief. Not having a first-born son was shameful because it means you're weak, as a man. We might pride ourselves on not having a king, but a wet lump of coal like that can be the Ealdormen of a clan and no one can say much unless it reaches the Council. Then alliances and shards rule. He was a drunken tyrant. Also a cunning piece of shit, apparently.”

"Ersa killed him? Jiran was a tyrant. You said hat’s why you took him down."

"That wouldn't have been nasty. More like he taught us to take hits, literally. The one thing he wanted from her was a lad who'd make a good alliance between clans, but Ersa was born to please no one. Nothing she did was enough for him. Never would. I wasn’t either."

The blade Ersa had used to shave her head was still in her room, and she threatened with using it again the days when Meridian's heat weighted everyone down. Fate had led to an inevitable outcome as only a well-oiled machine could do: it was a few years after the day when his mother's blood dripped down the stairs. Ersa would still say some twenty years later he was too young to remember it, but the red on his hands was his most vivid memory of the woman who couldn't be blamed for abandoning them.

The calm of the previous days had been a bad omen in a house where every night there were screams. Only that made it different than a day like any other — their father had come into the house and the lights had dimmed behind him. His hot, gasping breath smelled of Scrappersap. He was going to the tavern. Ersa had nodded, and the three of them knew what would happen in a few hours when their father scratched their hair trying to be affectionate but never knowing how. They never knew the face he made when only Ersa's hair, cut into chunks filled with rage, was the only thing waiting for his pulls and fists. They only ran, and Ersa's fear was enough to move their legs, and her bald head reflected all the lights and he was scared she'd run too fast for his short legs.

"We met some freebooters some time after we fled. We cleaned their weapons and served them food at first, but she trained every day and every night and no one stopped us. You should've seen the faces when she knocked down the biggest lad one day." 

"You mean like when I won the Proving?" 

"Damn right." Aloy smiled when the two bottles bumped briskly together another time, giving a high-pitched sound. She raised her bottle and drank. Erend waited until she was the one to grimace. "It's too hot. The brew?"

"I don't know, but it's terrible. So, what happened?"

"They let her fight because she was that good. Jiran kidnapped her, we met Dervahl...turned out he was planning a bloodbath. You know the rest." They had found their father had died one day in a bar. He had robbed the rest of the clan for years, so the jug he liked to drink from had broken his head. Erend rubbed his fingers against the neck of the bottle. He always made an effort not to drink from jugs like that. "You're looking for your mother to know more about who you are, right? Maybe...this is what I am, but she's not. Ersa." 

Aloy put her bottle down. It made a thud. “Rost said goodbye to me the day you and I met. He gave me this pendant. He would still be an outcast if I became part of the tribe. You can’t talk to outcasts.” She grabbed the cord around her neck, rubbed it lovingly. “I threw this on the floor. accused him, ‘It’s easy, getting rid of worthless things’. The hurt when he looked at me...he left before I could say goodbye. You were still there when he died. I didn’t start drinking because my mother left me either, and I won’t if she did."

It would have been too easy if someone like her, with her unbroken morals, had said it was understandable. But Aloy was nibbling one of the salty dried corn that hadn't exploded without success. Stating a fact. “I felt them,” Erend said. “In the Embrace. The stares and the shunning for being Oseram. Can't imagine what these people did to you. I don't know what happened...but you’re not worthless.”

She couldn't believe him. He knew, because when she didn’t, she said things like, “But you say it about yourself.” 

“Fire and spit, now you think we’re not so different? Fine with me if from now on you can enjoy a bath." Their knees hit, a soft, playful bump, so he let his ankle tease her ankle. Aloy crossed hers, letting them swing. “Should we get revenge? I might not be able to do much, but brute force and cursing?”

"You don't have to convince me.” She spat the corn she hadn’t been able to eat yet. “It'll be just the outcast...doing as expected. How is that revenge."

He nodded. She grabbed another corn, moved it inside her mouth. "Then...what about putting some Nora beads on a Grazer? We can curse its whole family. Or...we can give it to Marad. A tamed machine? Bet he'd do weird things with it." 

"Why Grazers? I used to train with them. Dummy Grazers. Rost made them.” She quieted, and he didn’t say anything at first because she was remembering. "I—"

"What? Just say it." 

“You look like a Watcher sometimes. When you hit with your hammer, and when you run. You know how they jump, they lift their legs and fly? You do the same. Guess your boots are heavy." 

Her hands and feet rose a few inches like a revelation: she saw something else than several feet of alcohol strapped into a Vanguard uniform. They laughed with the laughter of a few drinks on a serene night, as if her being slightly out of it made it good that he was enjoying how she had used that new slight of trust. The trust he had claimed to share with no one, the one who saw Aloy saying things no one else would hear. He was sure of it. "I call you pretty and you call me a Watcher? By the forge, this doesn't work, I take back that you're pretty." 

Aloy picked up the bottle again, put it to her lips. When she looked at him, her eyes drifted through his face, taking in everything and nothing, confronting him without precision. “I thought they were little ones,” she said. “They were the first machine Rost showed me how to hunt. I think they’re...nice. When they don't try to kill you.”

“Nice. And I look like one.” Aloy nodded in an effort not to laugh. “Damn.” She laughed anyway, a shy laugh that never laughed too much.

"Let's do that. I'll pretend my Grazer is Lansra, and you pretend yours is your self-confidence."

"Ouch?” She shrugged as he expected she would. They stayed there, next to the other, feeling the waves of laughter die as the small drops that scattered from the waterfall fell on them. The music livening up some of the taverns on the dock had stopped playing long ago.

"Hey, pretty girl, do you sleep sometimes? Because I’m sure we have to wake up in a few hours."

"I thought I wasn't pretty anymore." 

He was already standing when Aloy looked at his outstretched hand and decided to stand up by herself. Erend stuck his thumbs into his waistband and made a face like he had to decide the fate of the world. "Hm...nah." 

* * *

Something between a million and two. Maybe a million and a half turkeys had been plucked to fill that mattress, hence the squish, the sinking. The noise. Aloy shifted her feet between the blanket and the bed. She wanted to put her arms on her chest and roll around: he had called her pretty. It cloyed because she had been told worse things by some men and women and Erend looked stupid when he said it, and her cheeks burned, and she couldn't quite help the need to roll from one side of the bed to the other. Stupidly roll and ask the ceiling about the answer. She didn't. She wouldn't. There had been a question in his eyes when they stood in front of each other and neither could move fast enough.

“Aloy?”

Her legs jumped out from under the blankets. Erend's voice sounded through the door as he was about to open it. He didn’t open it.

“What’s wrong?” 

“I...thank you for today.” 

All she had to do was _ tap tap _ and look at the tallest person in the room to find him, a big purple block that wobbled slightly when it walked. Erend was leaning against the door, hunched over. Her hand caught the doorknob once, then twice, then again. The metal was smooth, and it slid inside her fingers. 

"Hey,” he said. “I didn't want to wake you up—” 

"Am I doing it wrong?" 

"Uh...patting my shoulder?" 

"Cheering you? I've seen people doing this, but— "

The line between one lip and the other moved, brooding, and his jaw wavered. Then, again, he asked. She stared. He said, “See you tomorrow?” and his shoulder dropped on the wall, and then his head, and his whole body bent over as if he were suddenly very sleepy and couldn't help it. He was still smiling when the door closed with him inside his room. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm an immigrant. The times when I've felt discrimination the most were those in which the person on the other side plays with notions they didn't make, that they think they don't have. While in the Embrace, consider how Erend mentions a certain lack of fireworks if you talk to him after the Blessing in a somewhat rude way, or how he called the place "this backwater" right to Aloy's face. I'm aware he was trying to sound impressive and meant no real harm, and he has experienced being discriminated by the Carja for being Oseram, but that doesn't mean those prejudices aren't there or that they disappeared just like that. To me, it's kind of normal they'd surface along with surprise when he begins noticing Aloy's outcast past in more specific ways. 
> 
> That Oseram women who wish to become soldiers shave their head it's [in the HZD wiki.](https://horizon.fandom.com/wiki/Oseram)
> 
> About Watchers being little ones, it happens: Aloy says "Little ones!" as Rost takes her to hunt for the first time, and he, of course, crashes her sweetness with reality. Poor Rost, I'm sure he was melting inside.
> 
> Thanks for reading :)


	6. On the way to Pitchcliff

Steps came into his dream: some of the poorly fitting boards on the walls and between the windows let faint light crept into the room. The sounds crunched on the landing, too dim to be sure it was her, too crisp to be mistaken for the noises of every night. Aloy was leaving.

She stomped on his back, his ankles, his face was half flat against the pillow and his knees sunken in the mattress. He didn't need her. He knew where Ersa was, how to get there. He had imagined killing Dervahl too many times, the vein in his neck and the greasy smile, the way he moved when he fought, heavy and slow like a Trampler changing path. 

Erend rolled over and looked at the line of light under the door. No shadows moved through it, and as he looked and waited, he was sure. Aloy had found him revolting. Weak-willed, able to put excuses above and below all of his flaws. He could beg. Ask her to stay and become that kind of man he despised and that Aloy wouldn't believe. She wouldn’t stay even if he begged.

He sat. One leg fell like a sack over an ankle, his trunk on it. Erend ran, threading little blows into one pain, and the corridor was empty, Ersa's room was empty, the bathroom was empty. The stairs flew under his feet and blurred. His heart stopped beating.

"Is something wrong? You're...white."

She was holding a ladle in her hand. Aloy had a ladle in her hand, her hair half tied up with a piece of leather, and the furtive steps were not steps but the tinkling of the copper pots and the crackling of fire. The dense fog that had made him wrap himself in the sheets was the clean white steam coming out of the kitchen. She was cooking. For him. For her. Erend held onto the railings. Aloy glowered at the ladle a second time as if it were to blame for her not knowing that no one expected guests to come out of your kitchen wrapped with a smell of warm, homely food so early in the morning. 

"I usually greet others with a smile, you know about those? So...is that the armor you bought yesterday? Guess that's why you wouldn't show me. Fire and spit, armor is meant to keep you from dying? Looks good, really. Watching your guts be out in one fell swoop won't be as pretty.”

"If you're going to die, one armor or another won't help." Aloy stood in the middle of the kitchen door. "Out of the way, Erend. You made dinner yesterday." She pointed the ladle toward the table. "Sit down and wait." 

The golden threads hanging from her Carja blazon brushed against her bare back. She glanced at him with tight lips before pointing her chin at the fruit on the counter. "It was going to get bad before you returned...and you sleep too much, so..."

Erend scratched the bridge of his nose and twisted his neck so he could look at her as he walked the exact line she had told him to walk. A cup of warm goat milk was on the table. "So I just sit and wait to be fed? Yeah, I mind it a lot!”

The threads rising and dancing over the milk did the same as all his blood when he caught a glimpse of her hips, and all his things shone and gleamed as if to tell him there was something that fit between the angles of her stomach and the corners of his house. As if he wouldn't notice. He drank. The heat went down and made him sprawl on the chair, stretch his legs, throw his head back and take a slight sigh. 

He had made up his mind to live there when he imagined himself like that, doing exactly what he was doing. Two years later he couldn't remember the last time he had sat by the window overlooking the Spire with a cup of hot clay in his hands. Aloy's moved over the pot and the sizzling and carried the smell of smoked bacon and grits all the way to the table.. 

No one would have stood there with nothing to do. No one without a Focus. Maybe she hadn't felt so lonely as a child, and she hadn't been so bored when she couldn't play with others. When she couldn¡t talk to anyone but Rost or the strange lady who talked to the mountains she had rambled about. Maybe she smiled when she talked about the valleys and the animals and the rivers because they were good memories. Aloy was surprised to find him looking at her. Erend ran his palms across the table and moved it from side to side to make sure it didn't limp when she asked where the plates were.

"I need to stop at the market,” Aloy said.

She sat and there was an excess of chair all around her thin body. A small streak of freckles ran down her chest to her collarbones, and nothing stood in his way until the blue silk around her breasts made him realize how long he had been staring. Aloy pulled off the leather that had kept her hair out of the food and let it fall and open over her shoulders. He wished he had paid more attention to the shape of her jaw. 

"You need arrows or something? We have lots of stuff on the training grounds." 

“Why would I need to buy arrows? I need...a scarf. Where did you buy yours? I can run there now, no time will be wasted. I'll meet you at the gate.” 

“We should finish eating though, but sure, I’ll take you. Can I have seconds? These portions of yours...” Aloy chewed slowly, biting the spoon to eat the food.

“I wouldn't mention it if it wasn't important.” He hummed. She straightened up. There was more food in the kitchen. A rhythmic tap began between her foot and her chair. When he returned, Aloy checked the amount of food he'd served himself as if no one had ever liked her food so much before and was surprised that he did.

"Listen, I have dozens. You noticed the sand, right? It's in the air, comes and goes all the time. Sometimes sand storms rise up from the desert and soar to cover all of Mer——” 

Her fork clanked against her plate. "You're thinking it's stupid. I already have one, it's just... " 

"Hey, there's not a chance I'd think anything you say is stupid, trust me. Wait here."

Of all the reasons he may have said Aloy wouldn't want to wear one of his scarves "They smell like you” wasn't one. And of all the possible reactions, she chose the most unlikely: her hands raised, holding the ones he had left on the table like precious gifts that reminded her of someone she cherished. Aloy picked the one he had taken the most to find and compared it to the yellow of her vest. It was almost the same color as the one he always wore.

“I like this one. Are you sure you don't mind giving it away? It's fine silk, costs a lot of shards."

"Are you sure you want to wear that?"

Her head moved as if it was obvious she did. "Why?”

“Why what?”

“Is it...payment for helping you with Ersa?" 

"Fire and spit, no? We had to...adapt the Vanguard’s uniform after we learned what living in Meridian was like. Lighter fabric, soles that wouldn’t fry your feet...thing is, every dressmaker in the city learned the crown was paying, so we got enough samples to fill the palace. As I said, have tons. If I were to pay for Ersa’s life it’d cost another life. A few, and maybe it wouldn’t be enough.”

"No one's ever given me something for no reason.” 

“Look, you don’t have to do this. It's...a small gift between friends. Nothing special." 

Aloy stopped chewing, then she stopped eating altogether. "Teb gifted me a Brave’s armor before I became one, but I saved his life years ago. Maybe some of the pieces I sold to Karst weren't up to scratch, but I doubt it. Rost...gifts weren’t as worthy as rewards.” She looked down, suddenly interested in how the grits would move if you dragged the spoon from one side of the plate to the other. “And I didn't have friends.” 

She made that face, the one that made it awkward to say something after she spoke, as if doing things differently than the way Rost had taught her was a terrible mistake and yet you couldn't decide whether she wanted to make mistakes or not. 

“Well, you do now.” A piece of bacon crunched in her mouth, and she looked at it, turned it over. Erend picked up his spoon, embarrassed when she wouldn’t pull her eyes off it. “I…would have gotten something better if...” She did it again, squeezing the cloth like it was shiny gold that you couldn't stop touching. “But it looks—” 

“Good on me? You’ve said it four times already. That something looks good on me.” 

“If it’s true, it’s true. But I'll try to work on my flattery, seeing you finally like it.” 

Aloy stretched to grab her quiver. One finger moved six times from arrow to arrow. "Guess it can't get any worse.”

They ate and the spoons made the short movements that happen when you eat and smile at the same time. When they finished, everything was fireless and waterless —he had checked at least three times— before his arm cuff pulled his shirt in just the right spot and his hammer helped him feel his feet firmly on the ground. The bright light on the porch made him squint. 

“Check your armor twice,” Erend said, “one for safety, one for luck. Ready to leave...Meridian's comforts?” 

"About that, have you considered buying rope? It’s a _ savage _comfort, but it'd make coming and going from your house easier." 

"Rope?" 

"Rope. To climb up? And to slide down.” Her hand rose from the handrail to follow her words. Erend left his backpack on the floor.

"Wait, is this your surprise? Are you telling me you'd...jump to the ground from here if you had a rope?" 

"It isn't, but I would." 

"Woah, girl...” The lock clicked. A key slipped under this broken window, pushed hard so only those who knew it was there could find it. His own key found its way inside his vest. The waterfall told about the rocks and the sharp edges making it stop right below. “I never want to see that. If you need it...that’s there, you know. Just in case.” 

Aloy looked back and he stopped not to leave her behind. She looked at the window and the roof, the porch and the sky, and Erend didn't know if she was saying goodbye to his house or hating it one last time. Her step was light, with a readiness to always do things keeping her heels from sticking to the ground for too long. She came to you as if she knew beforehand that every step she took was the right one.

Aloy shrugged her shoulders and her shoulders stretched her stomach, her ribs and all the curves. "Wait until you see me jumping from a Tallneck then."

* * *

Erend waited for the sounds. She had her mouth open, the words almost ready, the tinkling below her navel when he looked at her — when a _ friend _looked at her. Aloy nodded absently; he kept listing the places they needed to hurry to before leaving. She wanted to tell him that her fingers had slipped through all the silk, admiring the colors, that morning — that it was the first armor she had bought with her own shards. 

Aloy dropped her hand when Erend gave her a sideways glance and smiled when he saw her fingers there again, touching his scarf, moving it from here to there. There was a pause. They stared straight ahead. She wanted to tell him that the old Nora in her blue scarf was like a stain she could not scratch from all that newness. Which words would say that the more she looked, the more she wanted to know how he had learned that a tribe could be a scar and still be yours? How he had learned to wander surefootedly in places he was not from. She wanted to tell him it wasn’t vanity, but Erend spoke for the two of them, so she just followed.

First they went to where they sold bread, and bread in Meridian had so many shapes it seemed as if it also could decide what to be. The apothecary had remedies from every tribe for you to choose from because they all, more or less, worked, and the market stalls had things they hadn't had yesterday. Perhaps the houses were full of things because there were too many choices, and you didn’t hunt but buy food, and everyone seemed to have time to saunter about and about.

It made her feel envious, the contained calm of a day about to begin, the air still somewhat cold because the sun was shining but not yet warm. The routine of a city waking up. Erend greeting the men and women who passed by and stopped, sometimes for a second, sometimes longer, to smile at him, pat him on the back, nod and wait for him to pat them, and call out each and everyone's name. As if making an entire city want you to give them an instant without expecting anything in return was easy.

Erend started to go down one alley, then another. Aloy put a hand around his neck when they reached a small street where blacksmiths, leathermen, and others worked on tables halfway between their workshops and the street. They passed by a store full of silks and fabrics of all colors, some fine, waving, others in thick rolls of cloth piled up on rows and rows. 

His chin moved like this and as if to say, "It's your last chance"; Aloy rearranged his scarf on her neck yet again before pushing the pace. "I think I'll have to try armor from all the tribes," she said. "Pretty sure I’ll find one to keep my guts in check.”

He looked at her from head to toe. There it was again, the urge to cover her stomach with her hands, to draw in air and flatten her belly. To ask her why he kept looking at her waist as if he wanted to know if it fit between his two hands. She knew why, so if she embarrassed him she wouldn't feel self-conscious on her own.

"Fire and spit, sure, let's pretend you don't know which one, just ask me anytime if you need help with Vanguard steel. Bet you won't take it off when you stop getting all those scratches and little wounds. They’re annoying.”

She took her fingers to the long cut under her left ribs. "Yeah, those," he said. "Sure you don't want anything? Here's where most of us who live here buy. You won't see such prices in the main market. Alright! Then turn. It’s a shortcut." 

The shortcut was a long, narrow street that went almost straight to Meridian Gate. They walked, and in between the stiff feet and the bored glances of the same dozen or so guards and Vanguardsmen that were always under the archway, sounds of Vanguard armor moving, packs being lifted from the floor, and manly grunts tried to make more noise than her leg lightly twitching. Erend would think it was all too strange. Perhaps he would be embarrassed, or afraid, and sleeping so little would have been pointless. Perhaps friends talked about these things beforehand, and he would think she hadn't considered it. 

"Ready, boys? Uh,... as you know, this is Aloy. She found out about Ersa." 

Three towers stood in front of her covered in steel and white and yellow stripes. But it wasn’t the height that made her waver, nor how tall Meridian Gate seemed when you stood under it instead of just passing through. They watched her. She watched them. Erend scratched his ear, then his chin. 

"Peorth, Korduf, Vilgund,” Erend said. 

Aloy wasn't sure if she could remember the name of the first one, and then the second one, and then she forgot the name of Erend too. He talked when she was supposed to, and she realized she had to when he did. "I have to leave the finest in charge of Meridian while I'm gone, so these are the three flatheads I had to bring along. Just...ignore them.” 

Erend shook his head as if someone had hammered the three heads and he wanted her to know in advance. The men groaned, Erend laughed and hands slapped and made loud, happy noises. 

"Fire and spit, shouldn't you be more... subtle? Respects, Aloy. I'm Peorth." 

"Don't ask too much of him, it's not even midday. We met in the Hunter's Lodge, remember? Name's Korduf." 

"He'll be livelier after eating a boar, but no promises about increased smarts. Let me take that.”

A pile of teeth was smiling at her — Vilgund was so tall the edges of his slacks came off his boots and his face made you smile, as if his soldiering was all a matter of bad luck and he belonged somewhere else, perhaps making clothes, like Teb.

Aloy shook the small bundle with her Brave armor, ready to be hidden somewhere no one would find until she could pick it up again. “I’m sure this weighs less than the thing in your back." 

“Then we'll do it that way. They call me Vilgund, but ask me again anytime, three new names are some." 

"Hey, hey." Erend took a few steps, making him and her look like a pair in front of a group of three. "Order, should we? Too much Oseram idiot can confuse even me."

"It's okay, I've dealt with worse.” Three men laughed. Erend scoffed as if he couldn’t believe that she had betrayed him and as if it seemed to him just what she should have done. She would have to tell him about Resh so that he stopped thinking everything that was wrong was about him. 

"So...we’re finally at the gate.” Erend’s eyes darted to the carved white stone. “Surprise time?" 

“Surprise?” 

“Is it food? Because I could use some food.” 

Aloy held his gaze; Erend made a silent question because he knew how to read things in her face, and it was easy to imagine the two of them were alone, that she hadn’t agreed to travel with strangers, that the uneasiness wasn’t there. Everyone was expecting her answer. 

"I need to keep going, and you need to buy time, so..."

* * *

Dust rose in a thin, ominous stream. “It's a pack!" Korduf planted his feet, sure he would withstand the impact of the machines. A hammer blew off the side of his head. 

"It's the Nora girl! She wasn’t lying!"

The head of the road to Cut-Cliffs left a wide gap between them and Meridian’s Gate. Erend wished it grew: bodies crouched, not knowing if running away or not. Someone screamed. Eyes studied the hammers and axes standing above heads, as if they would beckon chaos so it could ensue.

“Cool your fire! Look! They’re blue!” His voice thinned the more he heard the machines coming to a halt behind him because his feet had learned it meant he had to run. Erend imagined, as he had done sometimes, the type of man Aloy would like. He didn’t run away in fear.

Vilgund dropped his hammer on the ground, not knowing why he had swung it. Peorth looked at the Broadheads and then at him, waiting for the fire that would come out as it did from the mouths of the stuntmen you found sometimes in Meridian. Korduf, perhaps, understood why Aloy had slid through the Lodge’s intricacies with the ease of the extraordinary. Aloy stood a couple of feet away, not knowing whether to approach or not. Peorth patted his shoulder as he walked to the Broadheads, smiling with a promise to embarrass him in the worst ways possible.

"I've heard of tinkerers putting wires together and making things move out of nowhere, but this….sure you're not Oseram?" 

"I'm sure. But I’ll take that as a compliment." 

"She still doesn't know enough about us." Korduf stood next to Peorth with uneasy feet. They examined Aloy like old people did, shaking their heads as she jumped off the machine, gauging how much they had much to teach her.

Erend took his time to reach her side: she was almost sulking. "You don't seem surprised." 

"Honestly?” A noise sounded to the right. Vilgund was pacing around one of the Broadheads, unsure about touching or not. Erend took the distraction to shook his head and rearrange his hair. “Asking if I knew any Oseram who tamed machines last night wasn’t that subtle, but I didn't know you could tame a few, so...I wanted to ride one. Since I saw you on Dimmed Bones?”

“I’ve never done this before, overriding several. Let's hope it goes well.” 

“Wait, so you don't know if they stay... tamed? Is that the word? ” Korduf tapped one of the Broadheads with his foot before dashing back, surprised that he had dared.

“Indefinitely?" Peorth joined Vilgund in trying to find out how many bags they could throw and let hang from the machine’s horns without anything happening. 

Aloy had the excited eyes of a little kid about to try a new toy. “Bet you didn’t plan to wind up trampled by a frightened herd...frightened by _your_ noises. These will take us to Pitchcliff in three nights, but if you want to walk...." 

Erend tugged at the scarf around his neck to make sure it covered the gulp of spit going down his throat. "Nobody said anything about backing down, right, boys? We have our hammers if anything happens." The three of them stared at him, then at her. Korduf fixed his vest. Aloy frowned when the three of them squinted as he moved the leather about: it never did away with the heat, and the heat had already taken one down. It was a matter of seconds that all went down.

"You sure Ersa didn’t just change her hair?” Peorth grunted when the itch began spreading and attacked his neck. 

“You think she’d be back with Erend if she finally got rid of him?” Vilgund shrugged as though it were undeniable. Erend had to nod ruefully.

"Well...I saw you get down. How do you get up?” Aloy smirked. Peorth did the same with her answer and suddenly everyone turned to look at him. Erend clenched his jaw.

A lazy, fat rabbit with a too big butt: the steel points of his boots wouldn't fit into any of the little ridges on the Broadhead's legs Aloy used to push herself up. Erend spat, wondering if he'd grow a fluffy, round tail soon. He still jumped, because the man he had imagined Aloy would respect rode machines as though mounting consisted merely of lifting a leg: the impact strained his wrists, his boots came off the ground, ready to carry his legs over the machine’s back. Everyone looked away when he gathered his embarrassed bones from the ground. The steel in his stomach had made him slip like a piece of wood carried by the river.

“Having fun, Aloy?” 

“You have to ask? Boots. Take them off. You can put them on when you get up there."

“If he does.” 

“If the rest of him does. Half his body has made contact with the top at least three times.” 

“I say we get some pulleys.”

A few mistakes later the wind made a new sound against his ears, a hissing sound that sometimes tickled, and air bubbles sneaked through his hair and down the back of his neck to make him shudder. First the colors had blended and the shapes blurred, then the world was half as big of what it had been when he couldn't go that fast. Mounting machines made people laugh without being alone nor looking at each other, awash in freedom. Peorth stepping up to reach Aloy sounded, instead, like trouble. Heaps of trouble. Erend sped.

"We’ve got the nail, so how about we move to the hammer? See? Nothing but flat ground ahead and that big chunk of rock in front of us. The first one who reaches it wins." Peorth’s trunk hopped up and down too much when the machine moved.

“Hey, she’s not here to babysit. Give her a break.” He could have shouted more. They would have ignored him the same.

"Are you sure you want to embarrass yourself in front of your Captain?"

"There are no mistakes in metal or men, you just need to know how they work.” Peorth patted the metal under him as though it were a simple anvil and not a machine he had been riding for only hours.

Aloy’s hands became fists around the thickest wires. “I think I hear a challenge somewhere?”

The Broadheads got in position. Erend copied how Aloy leaned to the front slightly and ditched her instructions not to lean too forward: he had to win that race. Vilgund raised his hand, counted down: Korduf and Peorth shot forward when the last finger fell. Aloy's hair whipped between the two as swishing gusts led them forward, taking the rides to the blustery ordeal. Erend couldn’t tell where his hands were. The machine moved between his legs and they bounced, colliding, leaving everyone behind. The wind made a barrier against his eyes. He closed them, someone cried out. Looking up changed the position of the sun in the sky. Aloy yelled and her voice turned into a harsh sound, as if someone had decided to scrape his head against a long piece of gritty stone. Rapid, nervous steps; crunching metal, shortness of breath that wasn't his. Her face. He had not been able to see her face that well for hours. 

"Can you open your eyes?" Hands buzzed like bees. Erend tried to answer. A nail driven deep into his skull made him shrink. "Is this the kind of dumb thing Ersa always says you do? Because I agree. Why did you jump, are you stupid?"

"Stop... yelling. Boot.”

“You can’t even tie a boot? Your Broadhead is tattered!”

He had to win. His chin had touched the Broadhead’s neck and he couldn’t stop, and when he panicked because the big stone would make him win and make a nice, bloody Banuk mural with his guts, his boot had slipped. Erend tested his toes, then his knees. He could move his nose. His eyes opened. The light hurt, but he could see. “Hurt.”

"Where?"

"Here.” His throat was dusted down, covered in a dry, lacerating crust. “On my pride. Hey!” The cough brought the pain. His voice rasped, and he trusted that Aloy was where he was thinking because his senses were still confused. “You hit a wounded man?"

"I can see you're fine!" Her fists swung as if they were holding the strings that moved her feet. He kept chuckling despite the pain because the pain would make them stop, and he couldn’t afford it. “I don’t know how long it’ll take to find another mount.” 

“So you won? Doubt you'd stop for me.” When far looked like far and close like close, he looked up and Aloy was standing next to him, scoffing.

Korduf let every stone know he had won, and every zany version of the fall the three fools who knew him too well were telling was like a healing balm. They knew laughter had an uncanny knack for making strangers stop being strangers, and they needed that more than at any other time. 

"Uh...you okay there? I can always run." Red marks showed where he had put his paws to hold on to her and climb into the machine with the help of everyone. It hadn’t been a discussion, because he wouldn’t fit anywhere else, and he barely did there. Aloy's knees were so close together they hugged the Broadhead's neck.

"Sure, I'll bring Ersa myself then. Just...don't fall. Again."

Touching her made her tremble the way ice would when it touched bare skin, and sitting upright —so upright that he could pretend to disappear— made the flatter paths into steep slopes. Soon, the struggle had him panting like an overfed boar trying to escape death, but the sun above their heads wouldn’t spare him if he squealed. Erend kept quiet, making an effort to breathe without moving his stomach. Then time worked, tey nattered away and his chin cuddled with her shoulder because he couldn’t stay upright anymore, and the clumsy excuses they made when their muscles got too tired and the embrace too tight served for nothing. They still said them, and he liked them because each let him put some of his pain on her back.

“We should stop here. The river’s there." Erend pointed to the right. "And further ahead we won’t be getting as much sun but snow. We should take the chance to get rid of all this dirt. If we—” 

“Save your breath, Erend. You can't even talk anymore." The Broadhead stopped smoothly. 

* * *

The night disappeared around the makeshift village: small blue lamps like those she had seen hanging inside Erend’s house cast circles of faint light around the fire crackling beside the tents. They were on the thin line between the desert and the forest, so her boots creaked against the sand and made grass crunch when she turned left to avoid stepping on the freshly cut log that served as a stool, then right to evade the game of little wooden figures that Korduf and Vilgund were playing. Peorth mixed things up in a mortar. His forehead shone. Erend waited for her to approach. 

His gloves had been on him all day, but Aloy saw the hairs on his hands wrapping around her legs. They grabbed her trunk when Erend tilted his head, doubting whether she had heard him, and his beard got tangled in her hair and tickled her ears when he smiled. Aloy stepped more firmly. "Can you walk now?"

"Yeah. The boys are better off than I am, but let’s just say I can’t imagine what would happen with my ass if I did what you do. I mean riding all day! And...you know, for days." 

Small dashes of warm light made his leg look spotted. Erend pulled a brew bottle out of a hole in the ground: he had mixed water with just a few drops of chillwater being careful not to touch it, like blacksmiths did all the time in the Claim. Aloy pulled her legs together and sat just like that. Erend was cleaning the bottles, pouring them with clean water. 

Their arms touched when he shook the bottle to call her back to reality. The heat a body gave would have been something new enough, but the desert also made her feel the heat a body gave until the friction burned. She stood still, measuring how much it had been the sun and how much his skin. She couldn’t tell. "It goes away," Aloy said. "Eventually."

“So suck it up then? I figured." 

The brew made bubbles inside the bottle all the way down to her throat and into her stomach, fizzing. Silk had become too smooth, and the earth too wet, and the wind made her jolt because it felt like Erend's hand on her back. Vilgund and Korduf exploded in laughter. The mouths of the four men never tired of talking and laughing and laughing. Aloy let the sharpest sounds bring her chin to her knees. It wasn't one of her days. Those days full of noise, laughter and skin on skin were the types she'd only seen from afar. 

Erend spun his bottle. He raised his hand. She let one bottle hit the other without much conviction. "I’m sorry. About the Broadhead.”

“I’ll find another. I shouldn’t have agreed. To the race. We lost so much time in the morning already.”

“Fire and spit, it took us a while, uh? Still, I don't know how long it's been since we left Dimmed Bones behind, but I know it won’t be long before we leave this disgusting heat past us, and I mean a couple hours once we get above those things. I say it’s more than enough." 

He ran his hand over his hair, pulling it backward. She hadn't seen it before, his face not covered by his hair, and his hair wet, his beard so sleek. Little drops got on her shoulder when he noticed her looking and smiled. Aloy wet her hands passing the bottle from one to the other. She held one on each of her cheeks. 

"Careful there, it's still hot, but it's going to be cold soon.” His finger pointed to the sky. ”No sunlight." 

"They don't call you Captain, your men." 

"Ersa's our Captain, and...we're not in Meridian. I've known Vilgund and Peorth since I was this tall. Vilgund is the oldest. He might look like a loaf, but he’s quick as a falling hammer. The first time I met Peorth he broke my nose. The next day I broke his." He shook his head as if he’d do it all over again.

"He's...a little bit uptight."

"He'd a son of the Red Raids. The raids began to last longer than expected, so young lads became...usable...he's a tad rough, but if you manage to earn his trust he becomes...well, you'll think I barely curse."

"Great?"

Erend grinned. "You'll come to trust him with your life. Everyone does."

“And Korduf?”

“The very night we took Meridian. Said he was going to kill as many Carja as he could before he could kill none. I agreed. Hey, I was still angry, okay? It was just bluff anyway.” 

“But he wants to be Carja.” Erend ran a finger under his mustache, pushing up the little hairs trying to escape to his lips.

“All our lives we had heard how cruel they were...after the ugly was done I spent an afternoon walking around Meridian, counting how many workshops full of stones ready to form buildings were on each street.” He tapped his knee with his bottle once, twice. “Some Carja raise their nose to that damn sun they love so much when an Oseram passes by. _ Forge-dirt_. It gets to you after a while, but you know that, don’t you? Two years is not a long time in a bickering that has run for centuries. We all deal with it differently, I guess.” 

She nodded, wondering if not only her belly was bare but her thoughts too. Erend talked as if he thought he understood what she had gone through and she understood what he was saying. As if words always told the truth when they talked. "Yet you don't seem worried about leaving it without a Captain. Meridian?”

“Ersa has...her own group of loyalists, Avad knows them better too.”

"You don't get along with them?"

Erend sighed, amused. "Knew you'd ask. We were mercenaries, right? Some of us went through this and others through that. And in the last two years, it has grown. Changed. Not everyone agreed when Avad made me Captain. Bet they thought they were first in line. I did, but I also say Meridian’s been empty since Ersa's gone."

"Hey, you cozy two! Come get some food!" Peorth flapped his arms. Erend groaned all the way to the fire.

Faint sparks sizzled over a huge piece of meat that sung each time Peorth added more and more spices and concoctions that Aloy couldn’t recognize by smell alone. “Someone told me you liked Oseram food," he said, "and that boar you killed earlier looked tasty to the bone, so this was due.“ Peorth had a knife smashed into the other. The blades groaned when he scraped them.

Vilgund nodded to say it was true and pointed to the sky. "Smoke rising to the stars? Sore muscles after a long day? A group of friends? These are the best boar ribs you'll ever eat." 

Peorth patted himself on the shoulder. He didn't need anyone to do it for him, nor ask her which or how many ribs she wanted. Aloy smiled at the rib Peorth had given her —the biggest of all— before nodding, sitting next to Korduf and far from Erend, and reading herself to sink her teeth in it. Something about the sound Erend made when he sucked his fingers bothered her. 

Erend threw a bone into the metal plate where everyone was throwing them. "This is just Grud’s recipe, and what half the people making food in Meridian do.” 

"He took you to Grud’s? He takes everybody there just so they eat his favorite food." Vilgund shook his head as if he had asked hundreds of people the same question. Aloy nodded.

"He did, but I spent the night at his house, so I didn't try the food there.” Erend stopped shaking his head and put it more into his shoulders. He played with the half-eaten rib in his hands, turning and turning it in silence. Vilgund was still looking at her. “I'll...try to next time if you say it’s good. The food." 

Korduf raised his brows at everyone and everything. “You should.” 

There was a mysterious way in which certain words created their own silence: Vilgund took a bite and kept nodding merrily as he eyed Peorth, Peorth glanced at Korduf. The three of them looked at Erend. Erend bit into his rib and chewed noisily, as if he wanted to make them wait to suffer. "Ersa's room was empty, there was no point in her wasting shards." 

Another friendly, gradually sonorous squabble unfolded, and layers of meaning missed her under Vilgund's serene grins and Peorth’s smirks, and under the way they had begun to treat them — she had not been Erend's but now she was, or she had always been his, but now knew and didn’t know why.

"I heard you. But the tent on the left’s larger, so it'd be better for three people. The three of us. We weren't counting on having traps or sleeping the whole night, you see." 

Erend seemed to give up. Aloy frowned as he sighed, exhausted, and wondered if they looked like they'd been punching each other all night since morning or if it was recent, the way their cheeks had turned purple too. "If you're going to go on babbling like this all night, could you just kill me now?” There was a very specific pain your head gave you when you needed to sleep. “I'm the one who doesn't mind sleeping outside.”

"Let's draw lots." Vilgund wedged between them, giving them no choice. Aloy said nothing when she saw him tip his hand slightly, making sure she took out the piece of wood the length he wanted her to take out. Erend took out, conveniently, the same. Vilgund just kept smiling all the time.

“You know what we say.” Peorth nodded ceremoniously. “Some time without talking is the best way to quench the forge.”.

Korduf did it with the severity of knowledge that holds true for generations, and Aloy knew because Rost nodded the same way. "And if the fire gets too low, you can always squeeze the bellows." 

“Shut up!” Erend hobbled to the largest bag and picked up several small bundles. The first bundle had fallen out of his hand when he first grabbed it. Everyone stared as he limped back to the smallest tent carrying what he could on one shoulder. 

Peorth, Korduf and Vilgund watched them move like someone watching a job well done: Aloy held the cloth that served as the door to let him pass. “Traps won't protect us if you keep being loud.” The three of them nodded as if being loud was something they would never do.

Her eyes had not yet adjusted to the darkness when Erend lit a small blue lamp like the ones they had spread outside. "Dammit!" He grabbed his gloves, throwing them over the lit tub. His hands were all red, and a trickle of dried blood covered half his left palm. "Better?"

There was two or three times the space they had shared on the Broadhead, enough to lie down next to each other but too little to maneuver without bumping. Aloy knelt by the slit that let in some light from the fire outside. Erend sat down. The tent looked even more rickety from the inside, covered with silks in every color as if someone was sorry to throw away leftover pieces and decided to put them together.

"You're hurt." 

"Hm? Ah, this is nothing. I used my arm to break the fall before but -"

"You've been limping for two hours, Erend. No one else has. Lift your elbow." His shirt was too clean as if he had scrubbed it, but the fabric was still open and torn at the points where it had received the most impact. The biggest wounds were raw flesh and some still had sand in them. 

"There's no need—"

"I’ll make some salve. You can put it yourself." Aloy poked around in the bags on her hip. Erend fell silent, distracted by the way she mixed this with that and made a count of what would be useful and what wouldn't. There was a mysterious way in which silence created its own words: they said nothing because her movements were procedural, necessary - Erend studied the colors of the tent. "You told me not to get wet with your shirt soaked like that?" 

"Hey, I had no idea I was going to share a tent with you...and I told you because I was getting cold." Erend moved his brows as though it were possible they hadn’t ended up sharing the same tent and there was some other option than not sleeping with a wet cloth clinging to his chest all night.

She was embarrassed, and she didn't know why, or why Erend looked away when he stopped looking away. "Do you really not hear how ridiculous that sounds?" It started as a jingling she didn't know, returned as a pair of drums tuned to the sounds of Erend agreeing, taking off his armor excruciatingly slow. Then the drum was not a drum but one of Meridian's music-playing troupes. The machines' rattling had hidden the noise inside her ribs, but there would be no noise inside that tent than an armor piling up in a corner, a shirt too thin and too wet leaving a body. "I'll boil some water." 

The few herbs she had left on her lap scattered on the ground when she stood. No one was outside, and Aloy couldn’t decide if the water boiled too soon or too fast: Erend jolted as if he had guessed he would still wait for a long time. His hands moved fast, the pain in his shoulder showed, and the blanket clutched him all but his injured arm. Aloy left the steaming water on the ground and threw the herbs she had set aside into it. The bead in his throat jerked.

She had seen dozens of naked bodies, but the sparse hair covering his chest stopped just above his ribs, and it was because of it that she sat down too fast or too hard. Her knee and his thigh came together, talking in whispers, and nakedness became something else it wasn't before. Erend stirred, moving the blanket about and tightening it around his bicep, and without the shirt, the distance, and with the contrast of the herbs staining the hot water, the smell she had sought for the last few hours got a name: just bathed man's skin. 

"Not many cuts on your face." 

"Yeah, I...had Ersa's helmet on, so..." 

She finished crushing the herbs with her fingers. The mixture was warm and somewhat liquid. “Put this on your wounds.” 

“Like this? I—” 

“Give me that.”

Her stomach would turn to the left if he turned his head to the left, and to the right if he turned it to the right. Erend half-closed his eyes, leaned in a little, and cracked his mouth open when she raised her hand. "Oh...okay." 

Aloy squeezed the mass of pulpy herbs to let it drain. The water fell from her fingers into his hand, and from his hand it slipped down his wrist and all the valleys in his arms. They said nothing when he drowned out a grunt and pressed the plaster over his wounds. “I know it's too big, so stop staring?” Erend smiled. Scratched and covered his nose. 

"It's not that, it's…” She looked around, slowly reading every part of his face, staying long in some places because it had to be bad, to have a friend whose face you didn’t know well. “Manly. How did you look? When...you were little."

Erend tried to raise his hand to his nape and the drops flew everywhere. “Shit, sorry! I'm not sure? One day I woke up and my voice sounded like someone else. Guess it was the same with my nose? Bet I wasn't as pretty as you, though.”

His lips did something she liked, and his breath was warm, and her toes —her body brewed a revolt— wanted to make music against the ground. Aloy still didn't know what she was supposed to do when he said things like that, so she made the only face she had some control over. Erend puffed and forced a smile. "Fire and spit, I didn't have this voice either?" 

It wasn't gibberish. A man could make your spit so thick you feared swallowing for it’d make too much noise, make you tremble where it was hot. Aloy wanted to run and ask the women she had once heard talk about if it was normal for it to be like that, if one day a man touched your belly and suddenly you couldn't look at him without thinking about how big his palm was. “I've...never seen anyone grow up, so…my voice didn't change. I think."

"Yeah, that’d have been weird. Only men's voices change, well, that much? I spent some time squawking. Ersa loved it when I spoke and it started to sound like the ground trembling, shaking and sounding like an old man." 

He had finished with a very low voice, almost guttural, to share the experience with her. She imagined him as a child, with smooth skin and eyes just as clear, talking in that voice and cursing when he hurt other people’s knees with toy swords. They laughed, and bits and bits of the past, his and hers, filled the moments when he pushed against skin and she drained more water and crushed more leaves. Aloy laughed so loud her mouth hurt, but the more she did, the more some of the alcohol the air seemed to be pushing inside her pores dispelled, so she laughed more than she had ever laughed.

“I think that’s enough. Don't put that back...you'll get sick." Erend nodded. A quick search found the pieces of cloth she kept for the worst of her wounds, and another quick moment became too long under the sounds of cloth being tightened. 

When he last was done, Erend played with the pieces of fabric that came out of the knot, looking at her, and there was nothing to say or to do. The edges of the metal bowl where there had been water were irregular, cold, so she traced them, thinking about every turn and every bump. "What's that?" 

Erend twisted slightly more and winced. The thing he had been trying to reach was wider and bigger than she had first seen. "So...bedrolls are for the weak? Because I definitely prefer to sleep in one.”

"Me too, I use mine to stun machines. It hardly feels like I've got a big roll slung over my back all day."

"Hey, that might actually work...luckily, I noticed no roll there and brought you one. Help me? I thought I could, but...I can't really move with all this on me. Sorry."

She followed his instructions step by step. Two bedrolls ended up stretched out beneath them, one body on each padded leather surface. Erend was wrapped in the blanket like babies were wrapped, not a single gap around him. Aloy pressed her lips and pointed to her Focus. “Do you want…”

“Yeah! I didn’t know if you wanted to show me more, so…” He was too squeezed to move the half of his body that he could move well. The light from the Focus shone on him, bouncing off the tent. Aloy realized too late he hadn't guessed she would help and moved her fingers away; Erend took several seconds to nod and grimace with pain as he fell on the bedroll. "Where...?"

"Maker's End." 

"Are you telling me this was there...before? In Maker’s End?"

"A thousand years ago, I guess."

The Vantage showing FARO’s ruins before they were ruins made it make sense, when Erend's eyes shone with those buildings that rose to the sky he liked. Aloy didn’t say much, but Erend didn’t ask for more, and she could get used to it, lying next to him and seeing his eyes grow big with the things only she could show him. The method was clean, measured: he would tilt his head and she would hardly touch the Focus, look for another one of those things he could know, and he would hold his breath as she flattened the metal against his temple.

"These things...flying where Meridian is now...what are those?” 

“I’m not sure. The person who made this, Bashar, traveled to all these places in hours. I'd take me days, maybe more. Maybe he used one of those.”

“Hm, they look like...old Stormbirds? It’s so strange, seeing the rocks and no Meridian above them.” 

He was so enthralled that she smiled when he discovered new things to ask about and he didn't notice, and when enough time passed, Erend snored. Her eyes wouldn’t close. They never did the days they were together.

* * *

The thread was thick and stood out roughly from the fabric. Erend ran his fingers over his elbow and shoulder again, careful not to touch where it hurt the most. He had found Aloy's bedroll empty when he woke up. A patched shirt, his own, waved him good morning from where he had hoped to see her sleeping. He touched the mended cloth. There’d be no thread when they reached Pitchcliff if he kept at it.

"Lean back!" 

Aloy shrugged. Peorth and Korduf rolled their shoulders to loosen them and finally beat her at something. Erend settled back down on the log. It had been wise to lay out a few details about how Aloy had grown up in that brief moment when she would not hear him speak, and to pick the few men he knew wouldn't judge her: they didn't judge him. Aloy dug her feet in. Vilgund ran after her stone. Peorth and Korduf wrapped their arms around her shoulders and she, though the distance made it look like she was about to, didn't bolt. 

The wounds on his skin were a nuisance, but the pain in his side, the one that went down to his leg, hurt most after a whole day on the Broadhead and with the stiffness of too many hours sleeping. Nobody said a word when he chose to only see her hunting more rabbits than Korduf and Peorth together without using her right hand, or when Vilgund went off alone with her to pick up berries and a few other herbs because tempting fate had never worked. Rescuing Ersa would be a job.

The first ride had passed by piling up things that Aloy had to do because she had never done them before. Someone asked her every now and then, "What about this? Have you done it?", and she always said no, and the list of things they promised to do wouldn't have fit in a lifetime to do them all together. Peorth’s garrulousness had promised it'd remembered each, at least the ones that could be done before they got to Pitchcliff. Vilgund and Korduf had nodded as if they were taking notes. Aloy had stirred. That morning a shout had woken them up: Peorth waited with his feet surrounded by a bunch of stones. 

A few rocks flew into the ground in the distance. Vilgund dashed, following the arches. Aloy won — again. Erend reached out to stoke the fire. It smelled of the food you eat when you only have a fire and a pair of pots to cook. "Will you leave her alone now or not yet?”

Peorth sat and looked at the food ready to be eaten as if he hadn't sneaked a few minutes earlier to grab a piece of stale bread and munch it while the others were throwing their stones. "Hammer to steel, have you seen how much she likes it when she wins? I can’t even regret losing! Listen, you should check your girl's back." 

"Stop saying that.” Erend turned around. Korduf, Vilgund and Aloy had begun walking back to the fire. Hunger goaded their feet. His voice became low. "Why?” Erend found the bowls with his eyes and counted how many were clean. He poured water on the fifth and brought it close to the fire so that it would boil. 

Peorth flicked his hand when he pressed for an answer. "She hasn't taken off that blanket you gave her the whole morning." 

"It’s chill?"

"Fire and spit, Erend, just do it." 

Breakfast went up to his throat. Peorth, Korduf and Vilgund waited silently, sitting on their Broadheads. Erend rubbed his forehead. "You should have told me!" 

"And what would you have done, Erend, run to Pitchcliff?"

She had asked him if he could handle riding alone last night. It'd be a waste of time, searching for another mount if he didn't. He had looked around, toyed with the options. Shook his head. He could. Aloy had nodded as though she didn't know he could, and just like that, she had left camp but to clean herself. They never discussed the Broadheads again, and he had felt victorious that she didn't mind spending an awful bunch of hours so close to him. 

"Here. I would have done this." 

His belt fell to the floor. The snow muffled the noise. His vest left his chest with a grudge. He hated every trace of a hit, of an ambush, that cleft left by that Stalker who almost killed him, and that he metal pieces of his armor had been smooth one day but now weren't. Aloy's back was covered in small but regular bruises She had said nothing. 

She had picked the wrong stick knowing she had because Vilgund made it evident which one was which so she could pick another, but she had picked it, and he had picked the other, and after a day of knowing more, different people, she still had chosen to be with him. She had looked at his lips, and then again, and he had looked at hers and she had heaved. But victory was tasteless if the rules that dictated how two people touched did not work with her: Aloy lifted her arms, he circled her waist. She leaned on him. They could there. The silent agreement she had signed for the both of them said comfort prevailed when it made them go faster and stop less, when it made their bodies hurt less.

But when they sat down at the fire, Aloy didn't want to sit next to him. When he didn't know how to smear that wet paste on a wound that he could barely reach without hurting his entire spine, she had looked at the ground and continued to move wet leaves from side to side in her palm. His hands were too upset, so they pulled her hair back, away from his face. Erend grabbed the cables in the machine’s neck because now he could, and to let the heat of his body warm what that meager Carja blazon couldn’t.

Aloy's ribs drowned under his arms.

* * *

“Aloy!” Erend got up and ran over to her. She ran.

"Is something wrong?”

“No, it’s j—”

“You took your damn ass time to bath! We were sure you had left. Erend was about to sob.” Peorth patted her on the shoulder. Two days had made him curse more and measure less. Aloy got out of the way just before Erend gave him a little push. Everyone laughed, but her, and the relief skittered between the holes of every piece of steel of their armors.

Erend was always walking around with his hammer stuck in his back. Perhaps he had carried it there for years and the weight had made him slouch a little every day, for many days. When she liked looking at the small hump behind his neck, Aloy had run, and then she had hunted. A moment to enjoy the silence kept getting longer. She didn't look back as she scrambled to the tent, and a quick calculation made her stay put: Peorth would sense something. Erend’s eyes had stalked her, marking every step, making sure she didn’t stray too far again.

Someone would pour sand to keep the fire in check before the day was out, but the night was just beginning and the embers were still tall, nervy flames. The contrast made her see: the silhouette of Erend, walking the way Erend walked, stood up. And so she hated recognizing his legs because of how they moved, because his bearing had been queasy for days, and his body leaned slightly to the right because he was right-handed. The blows he hadn’t stopped must have often landed on the left.

"Hey," he said, and she stayed still. The light of the fire blinked when he lifted the makeshift entrance and put one hand on the tent, when he fidgeted, and she hated predicting exactly how the shadow stretched out like a mirror over her would move. She failed only once. “I’m sorry.”

She craned her neck back, looked, and when she looked she hated the smell of him swirling around with her. Every crevice of her body reeked of him, and what she thought sounded like him, and she had sought quiet and his voice had run after her so that she could hear him as she butchered young arrows. "Why?" 

"Why? You've been dodging me all night, and then... you stayed here? Peorth made the ribs you like, being the last night and all... he saved the four biggest ones for you. It won't take long to warm them up." He pointed to the fire. " Let's eat?" 

She hadn't been sure, but now she knew: he would never know. Slips were easy, deadly, and the wonders of friendship were so dazzling she had forgotten she wasn't supposed to have them. It only made sense, keeping her content until she helped them save Ersa. So Peorth made her laugh, Korduf helped her spar, and Vilgund worried about if her pouches had enough healing herbs or not. Erend always stared, always smiled. They did it more the more Pitchcliff grew closer.

"You are eating too?"

"I figured you’d come out soon. So...if everything's fine..."

"It is, but I'm tired. What are you doing?”

He began taking off his second boot. "You say you're fine, and truth is, I'm exhausted too.” He smiled. She regretted peeking.

"We're not getting much sleep." He spread his bedroll. She turned, again, her back on him. 

"We have nice beds too, you know. The Oseram. Fire and spit, a nice bed, sleeping for two days. Pitchcliff’s small, bu—”

"Bet you can’t wait to be done with this."

"You bet my head needs to stop bouncing for at least a week because that can’t be good for the neck. But...yeah, I mean, I miss Ersa?” He fell on his bedroll with a groan. Aloy gnawed off her thumbnail. “We could buy a cart there, something small? Stick it to the Broadheads, and have Peorth and Korduf drag us back.”

His voice had sounded right in the back of her head. She wouldn’t be there by then, but said, “I don’t know how now, but you’d end up dragging everybody." Erend chuckled. Hummed smilingly.

They laid down, side by side, for the last time, so she hadn't said anything when Erend didn’t move his bedroll out of the corner of hers. The hours went by. He did it every night: he would reach out, grab a lock of her hair. His breath lurched and he would steady it as if the noise of his fingers didn't bother him, but a very long or very loud breath did. He stroked her hair with the same carelessness that he tied to her corners, the one that laughed when he was happy and didn’t when he was not, and when being so careless became too hard, made him drink. The recklessness that touched her hair at night simply not to let his chances, any chances, slip away. 

He snored dully, rhythmically. Aloy learned the cues of his sleep, used them to mask her movements, waited some more. She raised her nose, and her nose touched a finger. She raised her forehead, and her forehead touched a finger. She stretched out her lips, and her lips grazed a palm covered in thick Vanguard leather. 

But she had won, because she clenched her teeth so tightly. She felt nothing either if she closed her eyes, held her breath, and let sleep calm her heart's pulse.

  
  


** **

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Korduf exists in the game, he's the Oseram dude you find in the Hunter's Lodge and that ends up admiring both Aloy and Talanah. The forge/sex jokes are actually from the game, too - from the mission Hammer and Steel. You can see them here in case you missed it: https://youtu.be/htiPvWBdRLA?t=874
> 
> We know Sylens is able to control at least another mount while using one (this is how he rescues Aloy from Helis), and as far as I know, the game didn't establish clearly what happens with the machines Aloy overrides. My guess is the Focus controls them somehow but at the same time, they respond to motion since she seems to control them moving her body rather than using an interface with her hands or something similar. 
> 
> Thanks for reading :)


	7. Pitchcliff

After so many days, he had learned to distinguish her stares: her pupils bounced as though the world had leaped and shrunk to fit in a grid in the brightest colors he had ever seen. Aloy's Focus, on the inside, glowed like the sun. It also led to corpses. 

“Has to be Marad’s guy. Dervahl’s tugs must have made him.” 

Aloy lowered her head so that he wouldn’t guess her thoughts and see the same fears that harbored on his own. She was wet, with a cut on her cheek, still panting. The Broadhead’s front had been his that last day, she had fallen asleep somewhere along the way. The blissful heat on his back had ripped under a rain of squawks: Aloy had jumped from sleep to ordering them to look for Marad's man. His armor had been hanging from the Broadhead’s horns.

Half the necessary remorse had vanished to let him spin the machine away from the Glinthawks. But Ersa wasn't anywhere, and Marad's spy had laid dead before his feet. The corpses in front of him were about to change faces. 

Year after year the sounds of violence had been etched into his seconds, but Erend didn't know any of the ones rising on that gloom noon when Aloy said she had an idea and he wanted her to have no more ideas: the while after he had seen her slipping through the bushes was about to become too long. Right then, the first chains sounded. 

The rumbling had been an arrow threading through a string of heads: Korduf had gasped, Peorth had flailed his arms and froze, Vilgund had clasped the handle of his weapon so tightly that the steel discs in his gloves had scratched the wood and made ears tickle.

Erend had swallowed, stretching his neck to widen the gap between each joint of his backbone. There was no bright orange in all the dullness of Dervahl’s camp, as though the sad, dirty stones had copied the decay of someone who once had his respect. He spat, disgusted with his past. More snarls, mechanical snarls covered in blue machine light, called for them. 

Aloy had scudded through the camp with the fluidity of a body that knows how to string one angle with another, chaining force until finding an opportunity. When the second quake lured him to the lair’s entrance, she had left no bodies to temper his anger with. She should have. 

Ersa had trained to be the hammer, to strike with the same vigor with which the blacksmith builds the foundations of society: nails held the world, just as hammers struck with good judgment. But when he saw her, waxen-pale, wrapped in bloody gauze, the hair she had begun to grow in Meridian's freedom chopped to pieces, Erend did not want to be the hammer, nor the blacksmith. He was the molten heat that came out of the forges and formed and destroyed all things.

He threw himself down onto the wooden contraption hurting Ersa and shaking the entire room, charring until there was nothing but splinters left of Dervahl’s torture. He forged two gentle, sturdy arms to cradle the brittle human he did not recognize, to soothe it, get it up and out of there.

Two invisible stakes made of untamed, ablaze steel stabbed his mouth so that he could smile, always smile, until she died. Ersa died in his arms, and the heat was gone, and it had altered him, but what was left was who he had been: lonelier, sorrier, more lost. All in all, the same damn waste.

* * *

The path was clear, the tasks ahead were defined. She’d stand in front of Dervahl’s stash of blaze. Every single hour, every turn the Broadhead would do. She pictured them all. Erend’s farewell had been as much his as the chance Rost hadn't had to have one, and was, therefore, intolerable.

Ersa’s head had swung. The stream of groans would not let her help because it was a ritual: the crouching short steps, the unnecessary gentleness with which he dragged a body that no longer felt over the raised frame of the door. He hadn’t moved her far, just enough to scrape off those gilded bars of the cell where she had been dumped in. 

Aloy wished someone had taught her how to soothe when Erend kicked the rods in a sudden fit, threw his knees to the floor, and held Ersa. When he took and shook a hand as if he were still, somehow, expecting a corpse to be alive. But she had knelt and spoken of the future, Avad, and the blaze, and Erend had said: “Go”.

Each step leaving Dervahl’s workshop bent to make her go down instead of up. Aloy picked up the pace and sprang when there were only five to go. On the second one, she wasn’t sure which foot was supposed to touch ground. She turned around. Her feet echoed across the landing and nothing else made a sound: Erend's eyes were slippery, as if she were the stones or the dry leaves, the things that are always there and there are too many, so you don't look at them.

"Avad." He couldn't hear her whisper. She meandered, giving him a glimpse of her approach. "We need to warn Avad, but if you want, I could— "

"Say. You think Peorth and Korduf, or Vilgund, can... get there on their own?" 

"You know the Broadheads listen to whoever rides them, but—"

"They'll do it." 

"Erend—"

"They'll be as fast as you too. It's...it's the same thing." 

She wished someone had told her what to say when the pain was so copious that reason famished, but she didn’t know, so she said "Then I’ll stay and leave with you” and Erend crumbled in on himself, wiggling his fingers over the bandages on Ersa’s head. Afraid she would break into pieces if something that shouldn't have been touched was. They were shaking.

Almost by accident, no excuse shaped their touch: Erend spread his thumb a little, Aloy spread out her own. They grazed. The inches death had taken from him returned to his shoulders one by one; she drew a line, a concise, firm line about the size of a thumb. He felt familiar and unfamiliar at the same time, as if her touching him so decidedly made his skin and her skin new.

"Help me put her on my back?" Ersa’s eyes were closed, but Erend had slipped his hand away. He also thought corpses judged. Perhaps he’d agree tombs did too.

“Stay here, I think I saw a cart earlier.” 

Her breath wove white threads between her mouth and the leaden sky: the blood from bandits tinged snow the same way Rost’s blood did. It was unfair. Her arrows had whistled, killing without mistake. They had barely slept in days, ridden in the stubborn muteness that made concern for hours. 

"Aloy!" Peorth ran through the snow and it was not dense but water, and he blasted ice and blood with each footfall. Korduf and Vilgund struggled behind him. Cold’s depth crunched when feet stomped on snow. 

"Ersa is...dead. I'm so sorry."

"You are leaving." A long red line throbbed over the muscles in Peorth’s neck. Aloy had opened her mouth, but the bloodied grooves grew deeper, conjuring the fallen lying around to use them against her. “Where’s Erend? You left him all alone!” 

She was expecting Peorth, but it was Korduf who seized her by the shoulders. Vilgund knocked Peorth to the ground. His voice was hailstones. "Erend doesn’t need this now.”

“He's been licking the soles of her boots for days and see what she does! There's nothing now but a pitiful lad you can't toy around with any longer, aye? But I guess you can’t expect more from a Nora savage!” 

“Peorth!” 

Korduf dropped his hands to her elbows when she clenched her fists. Aloy twisted herself loose, pushed Vilgund when he tried to stop her. She let Peorth look at her, see her standing there, undaunted, because he was right and she had left and been stymied by her own realization that she had. But only Erend deserved to know why.

“You are wrong if that’s what you’re asking,” Aloy said. “Luckily, we've got bigger problems to deal with than with your crap.” 

Vilgund and Korduf raised their chins as if they didn't know who to condemn yet. “There's a shipment of blaze heading to Meridian meant to blast half the city and kill Avad. Two of you must ride a Broadhead as fast as you can. It won’t be easy. And right now, we need something to carry Ersa to Pitchcliff.” 

“Will it work? Without your Focus?” Korduf extended his arm and she followed his voice.

He and Vilgund were picking up the arrows that had fallen from her quiver. Aloy counted them: three simple arrows, one almost broken, were waiting for her on a smaller, less worn-out glove than Erend's. Korduf looked at her Focus with the same greed she had seen sometimes, but he squeezed her hand as she retrieved the arrows — a quick grasp, like a pinch. He looked away to stay ahead of trouble.

"Perhaps. I wouldn’t risk getting off the Broadheads. You’ll fail if another machine attacks you. Don’t sleep and you can be there in two days, maybe less. Erend said you’ll do it, but—"

"I will." Peorth completed the circle connecting the four pairs of boots. They sized each other up too quickly for a true sizing up. 

“You should stay here. He listens to you.” Korduf touched Vilgund's shoulder as lightly as he had touched her hand. Vilgund nodded and then there was nothing to say.

A line of drooping shoulders and hands awkwardly stuck in armors waited for Erend to come out of the stairs. Ersa’s body made crude sounds as they arranged it in the cart. When he searched for her, Aloy searched with Erend how to do away with the barrier that existed between bodies, the one that made her wrung her hands behind her back when he looked at them, and rub the inside of her elbows against her waist.

The procession marched in strict silence except for the rattling of the wood toiling through the irregular terrain. Erend didn't let anyone help him. When she saw the first machine it was still far, but Aloy ran on until her spear hit the weakest point, and she kept running and jabbing every bit of her remorse into the few other threats around. Erend stared straight at the ground, sweating, wheezing.

Pitchcliff had a peculiar way of not keeping secrets: glances carried murmurs, murmurs carried rumors, rumors carried actions. Suddenly the slope that ran through its center was a path of grieving eyes, and when the men stood by Ersa and Erend began to climb it, the sympathies were no longer hushed but a jumble of loose hugs and cries that embraced him. 

She was a stain. The yellow of her armor was golden and not subdued. Her purple was a flower next to the shades of mud that attuned Pitchcliff to the rhythm of a collective struggle. A lament she couldn’t join.

"Why stay here if you hide like this?" Peorth walked as he accused, as if she was supposed to forgive quickly since the good and the bad both rushed in him.

"I'm done arguing with you.” 

"The last of my problems is that you're Nora. Besides, it’s not your fault." There was an apology somewhere below his wink. "Erend came back from the Embrace. They were few words. We drank to a girl like no other. Fire in the hair, pounded just the right way—” 

“Oh, this should be quite the ride.” 

“Sadly, deader than a doornail. And then she wasn’t, and...fire and spit, him with her.” 

Aloy brushed the grass, clenched it. Pulled. Peorth had dark eyes that saw beyond what was said, so when Erend was with him, she wasn't, and when she feared he’d list all of her mistakes and demand retribution, she couldn’t do as if he hadn’t figured her out. 

“See, men are like furnaces, we need hot air. You two been sort of bluish these days, haven’t you? But I know you didn’t notice, so let me tell you why: Erend took his armor off to please you because you could have just sat behind. Then he spent two days making sure you were warm under your blanket. And his. Do you Nora wear so little armor with this frost? Or is it you?” 

"Are you saying you have a lot of time on your hands? Because you're still wasting mine." 

"I saw you shifting your feet over and over those steps. You weren’t leaving?” He sat next to her knowing she didn't want him to, stretching his legs and taking up space. To say that no matter what she said, he wouldn't believe her. “Come with us to Meridian. Tell Erend you need to so the Broadheads don't attack or leave us.”

“That was it? Next time just say you’re scared so we can get through it sooner."

"That tongue of yours caught flames, so grab some grit: Erend deserves better than you.” He lifted his heels from the ground, plunged them, lifted them again. Aloy began to stand up. “Will you be around in a few days when we have to haul him because he can't walk straight? Because hammer to steel, I already know you'll be the one he's looking for at the bottom of the barrel." 

"Maybe you wouldn't have to drag him from anywhere if you didn't drag him to a tavern in the first place." Aloy kicked a small rock. They scratched words in an unspoken hush so Erend, wherever he was, wouldn’t hear them. 

"Aye, I’ll let you know how our plan to cut his legs off him goes. Meanwhile, I know anyone would be confused if a woman looked at you like that for three straight days and more coal burned under our tent than under yours."

"We were busy making him lick the sole of my boots."

"That would have been better than being humiliated like that. You know, when Ersa fell like a broken sack onto that cart? I had to hold him up so he wouldn't fall apart when he threw himself in your arms. You? You did nothing!" 

"You seem to think you can sit there and judge me, that I need to hear you say. I don’t. You know nothing."

Erend’s pain made hers suppurate: there had been no cold Rost to rub and mourn. When Erend pulled Ersa’s hair out of her face, every strand tangled something in her stomach, something that was neither all envy nor only rue. 

“And what do you know? Tong is done with tong and you barely know fire! You know he still limps when you’re not around? You know his back is black and purple, and that he spent all morning biting his teeth while you used it so you wouldn’t wake up?”

Pitchcliff had been half-empty and was now filled. People with their hands in their mouths or palms on their faces made loud noises in a half-hearted silence. Brimming jugs were passed above heads to fill yet another paunch.

But even the grief that made it seem like it was carrying a burden it couldn't bear kept some decency: it wouldn’t be until the evening that it’ll forget, like every form of sympathy. It didn't turn around, saw Erend smashed into the shreds of his life. Left anyway, engrossed in the ease of the keep-going, scared of a sorrow she didn’t know how to keep from growing in her insides again.

Aloy pointed at the men and woman battering their throats with brew because it was their fault too. "I know I wouldn't give up so easily. Maybe next time someone dies he won't say he's a useless drunk when he’s not if you do!" 

She blew out and the blew made her lips rattle. Grief faded only when there was no time to think, but then came the nights, and the loneliness, and when the pain crept into his silences, Erend would remember himself as Ersa had last seen him because he had made her do it: a useless drunk who would try to be better. 

They could have been the kind words she hadn’t said to Rost, Erend’s last words; the proper last words that neither of them had said. They would never be.

Peorth chewed vitriol and spat it next to her feet. “Easy to say when you won’t even try! A good anvil doesn’t fear the hammer! Stay! Just know it means things that aren’t funny anymore if you don’t care about him.” A heavy sigh sucked his hands to his face and pushed them back to his nape. “We talked a lot these days, aye? You said it, you are so busy, and that’s good, but you’ll always leave. Don’t make it worse than it needs to be then. That’s all.” 

“I won’t leave him. Not for now.” Peorth measured her, nodded because the maze had outgrown them, and because Erend would hurt whether she was there or not, whether she left then or later.

“We can’t find him since he looked around for you and you were nowhere. He stormed out of the gate.” He waited for her reaction as if that alone accounted for all his unrest. She didn’t yield. “I hope we’ll meet again, so don’t take this the wrong way. This isn’t about you, but you and him. Let Erend know we’re leaving?” 

The tinkling grid of the Focus and the invisible power of her fingers created order. It was the order, that changeless world only she knew where everything was an effect that made her say "I will". And it was the order, the fallen order, what made her stay. The decision had taken form long before Peorth had said what she already knew.

Her arrows and the mounts had whistled, killing bandits and days without a single waver. She had done what had helped countless others and it hadn’t worked, and when Erend had made her more aware of the risks, the limits, she had struggled more and it hadn’t worked. Ersa was dead. Aloy wouldn’t get on a Broadhead and do the reasonable because the reasonable had failed and following the rules was, for once, as trustworthy as ignoring them. 

Erend’s trail hobbled. She had been thinking about how what they had was too much, Erend about all that was missing. For once, it fed her greed.

* * *

"So now you think I can hide from you?" Erend glanced at the Focus, bantering, but his lips did, at most, a wince.

"You can tell me to leave." 

"I could.” 

North seemed like south and any direction away from Pitchcliff was good. The small hillside where Aloy had found him had been easy to choose, with the group of Snapmaws coming in and out of the cold black water distracting him. He had watched her until she stopped a bit in the distance, he had asked her to join him. She had raced to where he was.

Erend reached for the canteen stuck into the rocks. "I have to.” The brew sloshed inside the metal covered in fur. “Funeral ale?“

“That’s why the people at Pitchcliff are drinking?”

“Bet they're, our funerals are a blast. Grab an anvil and brew and you can do them all, weddings, funerals, childbirths...” He took a sip, licked his lips slowly. “This will be my one...family funeral. Better do it the right way.”

"Don't you have a clan? I thought it was like a family."

"I have a clan...somewhere, sure. I won't be missed at many funerals.” 

She reached out her hand. "Must be my armor, but no one has offered me a drink." He passed her the brew. She made the exact face he knew she would make. "That's so bitter!" Aloy wiped her mouth in disgust.

"Fire and spit, I'm drinking on the occasion of my sister's death, you don't want me to drink something sweet, do you? That is bad enough. Hey, hey, easy!" 

Aloy had coughed some more towards the floor before putting the canteen upright over her mouth. Nausea rocked her chest once, twice, and the harder he pulled her fingers away from it, the more she closed her eyes. She lifted the canteen’s mouth one inch away from her mouth. There hadn’t been much left, but not another drop fell. Her left hand had grabbed his before he could pull it away, holding onto it. He pulled away. 

"Did you need to drink more?"

"I've had enough to drink for a lifetime." Erend stretched out his legs, squinted to make the steel tips on them follow one of the Snapmaws crawling in the distance. "What’s the use of a clan anyway. A bandit camp a few miles from town and nobody knows a thing? Even scoundrels eat, need things. They knew. In Pitchcliff."

"You can't know that.” Erend snatched the empty canteen from her hands and played with it. 

He had found the letter some months after he had first killed, when he still had that routine of checking belongings sometimes. There were days when the bodies made bigger piles on the enemy's side, but that day there were more Carja scattered between him and the rest of the men marching to sink the day in a pint of brew. 

A freebooter didn't need to know how to read, but Ersa had taught him what he didn't have time to learn. The handwriting was unsteady, sloppy as child-made things were, and the word "father" came up again. 

Somewhere, far away, that man with his face to the ground was a father, and yet he had traveled for days to kill people he didn't know for a man who wouldn't waste a speck of spit on him. 

He had drifted, wondering why and if that man was what evil was, and if he was too for hating him. He still didn’t know.

"You mean knowing If this ale was brewed by someone who deep down thinks Dervahl has a point? Damn right, I can't know. I can't know which of the ones who said they were sorry thought we deserved it either.”

"No one thinks you deserve this."

"And yet we've had it under our noses for two years and nobody said anything!" The canteen slipped through his fingers, making loud thuds against the rocks it stumbled against. Some of the machines, in the distance, changed color. 

"This..._ peace _is not perfect, but a place like Pitchcliff? It thrives on trade with Meridian! Dervahl lost his family and for some reason decided to take mine, but it’s a reason, a stupid one. But what's so bad about this thing Ersa gave her life for and that no one cares about? How...am I going to stand up for it now? It’s all lies.” 

"You ask."

"What, why the hypocrisy? Sure, Aloy, that’ll work.”

"I trained for a decade to make one question. If I hadn't kept asking when the door didn't open..." She bit her lip. Her thumb circled over her forefinger a few times before she stretched out her hand. He watched it move. "There was a door and behind it...maybe there's something of my mother there. But it said it was corrupted. The door.” 

“The door? It talked?”

She hummed, and they looked at each other's feet because her little finger had touched his thumb, and the fingers had greeted like they hadn't seen each other in a long time and still didn't know how much trust was left. 

"Teersa didn’t know it was just a door. Rost was dead, and all that effort...I asked again and found Olin. I found you. I’m sure the Captain of the Vanguard will do a lot if he asks the right questions.”

"Not sure about that." 

He turned her palm and traced the lines there with his thumb, going down when the crack grew into a vein, following the blue-green until he slid his finger down her forearm because Aloy had tilted just so. 

"Corpses don't last exactly long,” Erend said, “and of all the damned places, Ersa wanted to be buried in our clan’s grounds. Don’t think Dervahl would wait a few weeks, do you?" 

He wouldn’t be able to face Ersa if Avad died, if Meridian collapsed. Her ashes would wait, and he’d never say goodbye. It had to be there, in Pitchcliff. 

Erend wished Aloy had, at least, rolled her eyes. Instead, she gave hope "Ersa didn’t know we came in the Broadheads and still thought you could make it in time to save Avad. If she was right, we have days of advantage, all that blaze can’t be moved fast. And if Korduf and Peorth can make it to Meridian—"

“They will.”

“It’s risky, maybe I should...” 

“They will.” He spun their hands to make sure they were joined. "We burn our dead. Shocking, I know. With the ashes left we forge...heirlooms? ‘Steel to my soul’, all that? Hey, it’s just a bit of ashes thrown in some steel, but the rest of us can also have weird stories. Some Oseram are very picky about what they want to turn into. Ersa was not about jewelry, so...an ax?"

“Why?”

“To slice rascals and bastards alike? That’s what she did most of the time. I mean, she saw me every day.” 

"Armor. She died protecting others." 

Aloy weaved her fingers into his other hand clumsily and pressed them down so that her words would knit through his skin, go down inside, tangle up with his thoughts, like a thread made of Ersa’s love that couldn’t be squandered.

“The family is supposed to do it. It's been years since I've been in a forge. There's no one else, so...another chance to screw up." Erend put their hands on his leg. He smiled, briefly, looking at them, then he regretted enjoying the way her fingers looked inside his glove.

"With that attitude? Sure." 

And yet it must have hurt sometimes, the force with which he squeezed her hands, how he would press her veins to feel her pulse. He liked its rhythm, the steadiness. 

"The fires here are too small right now. I talked to Ralert, the mayor. Some blacksmiths too. They’ll help, It’ll be ready around midnight, yeah, takes a while. We can leave after...”

He had begged. A ritual pyre would take time and good wood. Ralert had raised hell, he had promised to pay as many shards as they wanted. Garnund, the oldest blacksmith in town, had examined him slowly. His tankard had ended the discussion with a bang on the table.

“It'll do if I scatter her ashes after everything’s done, right? It’s not what she wanted—” 

“It’ll do.” 

He chuckled. Aloy frowned because the more he showed it, the more his pain became hers. “She’ll spend a while just...in some stupid box. Vilgund will take her to the Claim, I—-”

His head had dropped like it had many times that day. The slump reached his shoulders as they would for many months. Aloy gathered him in her arms: the swirl leaned the back of his head on her shoulder because it would be too wretched to look at her face. Being comforted without giving up anything in return. Erend closed his eyes. He regretted that he couldn’t regret picking up her hands because they were lost. He put them on his scalp. 

Aloy rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly because he had scratched it, stroked his hair when he had pulled it, soothed his ear too gently because he had toyed with his earring too much and the skin was red. The restrained made dull sounds in his throat. When he caught her listening, he put her fingers on his mouth and pressed. Aloy held him tighter, and he regretted having made her do it.

She whispered an apology: no one had been there when she woke up to Rost’s death but a nightmare. Helis killed her some nights, and she saw Rost explode many others. There was never much left to bury. He said she deserved it, the hug she hadn’t been given, and that he’d store it hoping he’d never have to use it. She nodded.

Rost would lie in front of the fire and grumble when she used the Focus, grumble when she discovered something new and gasped. When she fell between vigil and sleep, Rost hummed. He had stopped one day, when her feet jutted out of her bed if she didn’t bend her knees to sleep. Aloy asked if she could show him how. He nodded.

There was the warmth of the fire at her fingertips making spirals on his head, the scent of a home he had never known in her breath. The steady rumble of quieter days in that old song that mellowed heartache made him sleep. 

When he woke, her fingers were still brushing his hair to the cadence of her throat. Aloy whispered although no one was there: the figures that always moved in the top corner of her Focus said so. Only minutes had passed.

When he reached out to help her jump over something she could jump on her own, their fingers stayed locked. He regretted liking the new ways of their feet. That first night in the Embrace they had moved away if they came too close. On the day Ersa died, they would pull them closer if she or he strayed just one inch too far. They slowed down at the same time, and her heels wavered when it was time to let go, to pass the door. 

To arrange a funeral. 

* * *

Reaching the right temperature demanded the trickiest of skills: knowing how to wait. The one thing he knew about fatherhood was a pair of ratty hands full of soot and dirt. A husky voice and two pale eyes just as his own warned him that hot black was still hot.

His hand had learned the lesson so well that Erend had somehow known, or so he imagined, he would not be a blacksmith. Perhaps it had to do with the fact that his father was not, and that the fabrication of a father he had built around his few memories and the things Ersa had told him never drank with them. When he learned smiths had the respect conferred by honest, bloodless work that exempted men from needing to beg to drunkards, he was already a hand attached to a hammer.

"Hey, boy, knock that off, you're going to take all the air out if you poke like that." 

"Yes, sir.”

The men around him whirled about with cold brew in their hands under a crown of cackles. No one but apprentices called a smith "sir", and among those who didn’t, someone in a Vanguard uniform wasn’t expected to show that respect to those not in the ranks. An outcome of that too rapid transition from mercenaries with little honor to protecting as much as receiving protection from the Sun-King. Erend patted himself on the nape. Maybe he wouldn't call anyone "Captain" anymore.

There was an imaginary path between the fledgling pyre in front of him and the charcoal kilns that sprawled on the outskirts of Pitchcliff. A breeze swept the sweat off his face when he stood. Erend closed his eyes and inhaled. He regretted that he had enjoyed something. In the distance, the smelting furnaces roared with furious flames. 

The idea of shoving Ersa down one of those small mouths still made him want to buckle and puke. 

"Are you listening? Hey son, look here.” Garnund had a back full of various-sized burns and a few fingers that were just a stump. His teeth were not much better, but from the mass of platitudes he had heard that day, only his grotesque slap, with his hand wide open and stiff, had made him feel better. “Your wife said you’re hurt? Was it in the head perhaps?”

Erend shook his head and scratched his nose. “What did she say?”

“Said to tell her if there were more logs to carry and that it was better you didn’t that.” 

Erend gripped the bellows. There was, in the muttering that listened attentively around them, that judgment that Aloy wouldn't know nor appreciate, the one that said that he was weak because he let his woman tend to his fire. It would be worse if they knew the truth, and he wouldn't let them know that Ersa had a weakness. Not there, where he could help her preserve some dignity because nobody knew him yet.

“Some wound hasn’t stopped me before and it wouldn’t now,” Erend said. “She just wants to help.”

“That she does. But you’re staring at those flames like they owe you lotta shards. I'm staying here for a while, come back after getting some air. You little scamp! Do what I say! And tell your woman to stop picking up wood from everywhere. All you need now is some well-dried pieces." 

Aloy had prowled around, pretending that the huge hammering machine welcoming those who entered Pitchcliff fascinated her. An overheard talk and a few insistent questions had set her on a quest for the right kind of kindling. The branches she returned with sparked a qualm, and every qualm made him turn his back on her some more. The rattling of the hammer was unrelenting, enerving, and fewer hits passed between her returns.

When she gave him the look you give to those who know of a mistake you wish would go away, Garnund shook his head approvingly, and the rest of the men no longer saw a poor lad with back luck shouldering a tragedy. He was a proper man, holding hands with one of those Carja women of whom they knew not much more than unverified fantasies. Aloy had clutched his palm, satisfied. He had heard the sound of Ersa's body moving from side to side of the cart.

Becoming proud of who he was not shaved words from his excuses: exhaustion made him sit on the hard, moist ground. Aloy would join him, move here and there, wondering how close or how far to sit, whether or not to let their feet touch. Then she squinted at the seams of his shirt, calculating how to put her hand on one shoulder so suddenly. When she dulled, looking to where Ersa was, he rose to work sometimes.

Others, he despised her for a short while, as when her shoulder, elbow and knee finally touched his own. The hammering machine struck faintly heard from afar, and like all slight nuisances that went on for too long, ascertained that Ersa's death had been so unbearably slow. Aloy followed it’s rhythm over his shoulder. Short, bumbling pats, like the ones you gave to children and not to men twice your size. 

With time the pyre was high, terrible, and made him crave solace. Aloy had let herself be embraced. Lies could be caught and his would, and her pity would drown him if he squeezed her some more. He contained, fearing the drought if he used it all. Shame could burn so horribly.

"You've hardly eaten anything." Aloy leaned on the table, the farthest from the stairs of the building crowning Pitchcliff, and fumbled at his plate. The bread was two little pieces of it and the cheese less than a quarter of a wedge. It bothered him, not having where to hide from her.

"I'm eating." 

"I’ve watched you eat for almost a week now. That's not enough. You haven’t eaten since yesterday.” She got up, came back. Erend shook his head and pushed the plate away. Aloy reached out to drop the food in her hands in it.

"Aloy, I _ can't. _" 

"Do you need me to help you eat?

"Would you please tell me what Peorth said to you? There, I asked with manners this time.”

"Mothers do it when little ones don't want to eat, and the Nora do it with the wounded. I’ve seen it."

"This is the sixth time I had to, for some reason, say there's nothing wrong with me. I’m not cold, I’m not hurt, I just want to eat in damn peace!” 

"Great. Then eat." 

The juice from the scorched-edged piece of meat she had put on his plate had soaked the bread in seconds. Erend opened the thigh with his fingers. The bone and skin peeling away made him disgusted with his own hands. 

No one said his name as she did: some stressed the first sound more, others uttered a monotone, gluing all of them together. Aloy split his name in two, rolling the pause between her teeth like pushing it down a slope; a long pause in which he always knew that it was she who was calling. He also knew, with painful clarity, that tightness in his chest when he was called and it didn't sound like it should have. The pang always stunned him.

He had nothing on hand to clean himself. The smell of the roasted meat made his stomach stagger. "Why are you doing this? I told you I didn't want anything else!“ 

It was her saying his name, so he didn't stop until he had shot down all the steps, plunged his hands into the snow. His feet lurched to the shack where they had left Ersa. It was the crudest task, to make sure there was enough snow around her.

When the sunset brought the wistful silence of having seen Ersa die about then just yesterday, Erend had returned to the terrace where he had last seen Aloy. She wasn’t there, so he had jumped over the barrels huddled in a corner. 

The nearest building was close, a mere half-man-sized hole beyond. He had jumped because of what the void had done to his stomach and because jumping would make it worse, and because that roof was the highest place he could reach. The gusts with swirls of snow were strong. He had taken off his gloves so that his fingers would become too cold if he stayed still. He missed her the most then, but Aloy had not come to him. 

The man hushed, retelling a conversation he shouldn’t have heard between Aloy and Ralert. Three flocks of Glinthawks had attacked the town that day and had been doing so for many others. Aloy had said "I'll see what I can do” and left when he wasn’t looking.

"We heard she's your wife, so we thought you should know...Ralert told the truth, they are Glinthawks, but then again, a Stormbird has appeared up there before..." 

Erend followed that man's eyes to the peak in the distance. The fog and dark were so dense he saw nothing.

* * *

Too many hours sinking a pair of sandals into compact snow had reddened the skin from her toes to her ankles. Erend was pacing up and down the slope lining the entrance to Pitchcliff. Aloy sped.

"It's still a few hours to midnight — Is..." She looked to the right. The pyre was as big as a small house, and the smell tangling in the breeze was fragrant, that of smoke and perhaps sap. 

Erend clucked his tongue. She had seen him like that: eyes bloodshot, wiry face. "So, had a good time hunting Glinthawks? Any luck and the Stormbird showed up? I'm sure a round of applause awaits you right there, where the people are gathering for a funeral? For now, take mine." 

There were things to feel in the space between her fingers when Erend's fingers got between them, and the skin that attached the thumb to her hand became supple when he moved it. The upper corners of her knuckles existed, and she knew because Erend had squeezed four fingers right there. He clapped. Three dry claps, with no echo that would sever the half-dead thread still between his hands and hers.

She couldn't quite figure out what it meant, how he had started looking at her, but every time he did, her ribs cracked. He would approach without getting too close, waiting for her to take the last step, letting her know he was around. That time he had sat on the bench next to the small hut right out of the gate.

To make a big fire very slowly, one with a big column of white and clean smoke that reached the clouds was not a whim. Coal made the smoke dirty and tradition wanted it white, and blaze made it too fast, as if you wanted to throw the dead off a cliff to finish the job in a hurry. She had nodded and their hands had joined with such ease, and the bench was narrow. 

She had gone astray already, so she had allowed herself a little pleasure: his hair was dirty, full of smoke, so when it fell down his forehead, he blinked, moved and moved it, blinked still. Erend's eyelids had become heavy, and his irises too, then his pupils. They couldn't but look down when she did as he had done and moved the hair to the side. He shut his eyes closed and seemed to find some peace only for a moment, so she had prolonged the task, pretending that the troublesome tufts were iron wires none of the two could pull away, letting her fingers brush his skin and soothe. Someone had shouted his name. When they stood, Erend let her go first.

He had said "Just for a minute", held her, and then breathed her, sticking his nose to the back of her neck. She had felt proud because he had been ashamed that she had stayed at his house, but everyone could see them there, and he didn't care. The cold had snatched her. Erend had stopped, left her waiting, wondering what she had done wrong. He had huffed like people did when they wanted to forget something unpleasant.

Ralert had popped up at the right time with the right request. She had run to feel the heat nesting in her legs, the lungs bulging and collapsing, the cold air flowing into her warm body, pushing her faster. She had run because hunting was easy, and it existed before Erend, before all those things that had happened not to her, but him and her, and that she couldn't have imagined on her own. They would vanish if they did, and he was only he and she was only she.

The legs of her alone had found Dervahl's old cabin and, there, time had swirled in a desperate hurry. She had run again, downhill, clutching the proof, sprinting along with the words that would tell Erend the world divided into traitors and turncoats he had learned to expect was no more. They had made it go away, he and Ersa.

"What, nothing to say? Is that part of the show? Say nothing when you arrive, say nothing when you leave.”

"I don't remember signing up for the Vanguard, but I must have, seeing you seem to think you can tell me what I can and can't do."

"You shouldn't even try, we don't accept people who gamble with risk for some stupid glory!"

The edge of his lips writhing and his nostrils flaring made her open her fingers. The small metal piece rolled to where he was not. "This is what I do, I take risks, I fight! Pretty sure that’s why you asked me to come here!” 

"Those risks were not my risks! How do you want me to help if you don't say anything!”

“Oh, now I'm supposed to keep my head down just because you've been playing nice with me for a few days? I don’t need you, Erend, I work better alone!” 

He staggered. “Fire and spit, you're always so damn right! You've done so much for Ersa and all that. Well, good news, I’ve been caught and she’s dead!” 

"Better for me, actually, to not have to waste any more time on you!”

She had tracked his trembling lip, his tense temples, the blinking of his jaw, and how it crumpled his nose. But the path she had planned for crooked: he was supposed to come closer, to blame her for not leading the Broadheads faster, for not killing faster. For saying lies. She ran. His shirt slipped from her fingers, his belt pulled her. She grabbed his hand. 

Erend made a fist out of her fingers until her knuckle cracked. He looked at their hands, wavered. Let her go. “I meant it when I said I was sorry I had to drag you into this. Now, though? I’m really sorry. But don't let me steal your time anymore, right?"

* * *

White thin smoke rose like the wake of an arrow to the bare black sky, the world knowing that someone had died who even the stars should not overshadow. Things moved: crowds swung arms and pitchers and cussed at some smarmy crone, claiming no one would take their last brew from them. Over there and over here circles chanted melodies that clashed, others told stories, and when someone talked of death and fleetingness and life, there was silence. Heads lowered and drank and someone would say "Let not the dead thirsty!". Threads of ale flowed out of the pitchers onto the pyre. 

Erend wandered about trading few words, fewer minutes, and an object. He would be given something, and he seemed to be grateful for it. He would throw it on the pyre. Vilgund's voice, dense and harrowing as she had never heard it before, covered them. The night lent him the ability to make shadows darker. She was sure Erend could see her, that he could hear her, that Vilgund's eyes shone so brightly because they knew where she was. Erend looked around as he did every so often, scanning the horizon, expecting. She wanted to be there, closer, not far away, perched on some rocks and finding him with her Focus.

The chant braided like a string: Vilgund carried Erend's voice, and Erend's voice carried the voice of strangers, and there was in that braid the same substance as in the prayers of the few Nora who stood, still alive, in front of All-Mother's mountain after the massacre. Vilgund and Erend raised Ersa. The body slid into the fire. Vilgund picked up Erend by one shoulder. The stretcher, empty, twitched. The fire spread and she almost ran because it would engulf him, and he hadn't moved.

He didn't move. Two rows walked by Erend, tapping his shoulders, brief consolations before the gathering dissipated. Erend was sinking, and she didn't know why anyone would give gentle pats on tired shoulders. Why she had, and if he resented her when she did. 

"I knew I'd see you again.” Vilgund was the last one to leave. He smiled, pretending he didn't think she had taken too long.

"Should I... ?" He moved on. When he reached her, his eyes fixed somewhere far away. He put one hand on her shoulder, a steady, heavy hand pressing through her armor.

"Only you know that." 

Erend stood still at the end of about twenty paces. The fire played with his steel, mischievous. Erend was two steps away, and his back was firm and wide and didn't flinch. He didn't look at her when she reached him, when she didn't know whether to take more steps or not and decided to say "I have something to give to Ersa." Her feet kept shifting on their own and soon the fire was a mountain that would take her whole if she just took one more step. All kinds of things were around the fire, shields, hammers, jars, combs, melting. Erend made no noise.

Aloy raised the small piece of metal in her hand. She looked back and her eyes had adjusted to the light. He was in the dark, unchanged as if she hadn't happened. She could breathe in, crush the hardening in her stomach, flatten it until it was as thin as a leaf. She would leave soon. It didn't matter that he didn't want her there.

"This is...a lure. Dervahl used it to lure machines to Pitchcliff so no one would get too close, or he just left it there because he didn't care about this place. It was where he first lived when he got here, up in the mountain. Hidden."

His boots made a number of sounds: the wicker sole crunched, the metal fittings moved over the foot. Erend moved slowly, dragging his feet across the wet soil. He held her gaze when he raised his hand, when she took a step and he waited there patiently. The lure fell into his hand and he looked at her with a blank face. He hardly blinked.

"I thought you wanted to be alone."

Aloy grabbed the piece from his hand and Erend kept looking at his empty palm. The piece made no noise as it fell into the flames. "You didn't die among sellouts.”

They looked at each other. Aloy came to him and said, "I did. And then... I came back." Something horrible happened to his face: his eyebrows twitched and his eyes opened as if they no longer wanted to protect his eyeball, his mouth caved in. Erend gathered up the pain and pushed it into the center of his face. He closed his eyes.

"You shouldn't be here. I don't deserve it."

She found, at last, what to do with the embrace no one had given her when Helis woke her up and it wasn’t just the tribal law or the Nora, but the world who took everything away and never gave anything in return. Erend let her take it back from his care and fold it around his chest. She pushed him up, raising his shoulders, wrapping him with it so he would stand firmer. Stronger. He squeezed her so hard they ran out of breath. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!


	8. Two Minutes

“It’s there.” Erend gripped the wires on his hands and leaned back. The legs of Aloy's Broadhead gave the pausing sounds the machines made when they stopped. Around them, small blue lights disrupted the dark. 

The Three-Legged Cave, if what the more seasoned wanderers said was true, had sheltered those who went to and from Mainspring to Meridian for ages. It had three short tunnels around a forlorn center, and the machines, so long as they did not see you, did not enter it. But what mattered about that cave was where it was: getting to Meridian in two nights would be a challenge; doing it in less time, impossible.

They had been right next to the Broadheads when he mentioned the cave, a safe cave waiting beyond reasonable exertion. Close to the Sun Furrows Hunting Grounds, it would put them halfway through before midnight if they didn't make stops. Heading down to Meridian before sunrise would get them to the capital before the second day ended. Aloy had inhaled and exhaled mouthfuls of cold, white breath before nodding, unconvinced.

Speaking would slow them down, so they hadn't spoken. Looking anywhere but ahead would distract them, so they had sought out each other only to be sure they were awake, riding incessantly. 

The sounds of their footsteps —of Aloy's shoulder pieces clacking, and of the steel pieces of his boots creaking— were the same ones they would have heard in any other shelter made of old stone. The few bags still on them made the noise one would expect when they fell over the gravel and the sparse grass lit by the stray light entering the cave.

Aloy’s body was a shadow moving among shadows. 

When the dry wood Vilgund had packed for them crackled, it was new: fire now meant goodbye, holding Aloy for too long. Pretending what happened hadn't when he left her in front of the pyre that had swallowed Ersa whole. 

Aloy had not left. There had been a hunch, a breathlessness as he knew it was her and the stars disappeared — he had been seeing her face in all the faces. None had been hers. He had seen her appear among the bodies but she hadn’t been there. She had been running, running away from him as his feet sank into the mud. Ersa was so white that the snow had not covered her but embraced her cold, lifeless limbs.

Aloy had not left but raised her hand and his knees had wobbled over his shinbones: there was now a place with his name on her waist. It had to be, because he had sunk into her hair and she had been, indeed, solid. Sturdy, and her neck had throbbed and he had loved the blood running through her veins. The soft swoosh his thumb made when he slid it down her bare arm. In front, right in front, there had been a big flame that he couldn't look at. 

Then he had seen her feet. Blistered. Snowburned. Bruised by the Carja sandals she had worn for days, days when the ground was uneven, the land cold, when it rained sometimes, and the sandals were new and hurt feet as all new shoes did. She was hurt and he had seen the lure in her hand before those feet and had felt, in the midst of the numbness, something like happiness. Where there had been shame grew misplaced anger and bitter relief. 

He had not asked Ersa to immolate herself for a life he wasn't sure was worth living. He had not asked Aloy to bite through her teeth and suffer. He didn't want anyone else to carry the burden of being who he was and yet they both, in their own way, did. 

They had left Pitchcliff. They hadn’t slept. They hadn’t eaten. The silence was viscous against the cave walls. Aloy said, "I'll set some traps" and her voice didn't fully catch him. Erend nodded because the motions were not his own but an effect of the sludge: he would not look at her again. 

He failed.

A pair of roll-necked geese dangled from her hands when she returned. Aloy sat down. She plucked the first goose with fury. A long, gnarled branch, the one in his hand, made a rhythmic noise as it entered and exited the fire. 

Fire couldn't be beaten. You couldn't step on it, there was no use spitting on it, or smashing it with a hammer. It burned you if you ran your fingers through the heat that blurred things above it, and made Aloy move uncomfortably every time he let his palm hurt a little. Then she checked his pockets. Made sure there wasn't a flask clutched in his left hand. Then she frowned, and her frown was not only her frown.

Ersa hadn't laughed that night, the first night he hadn't been able to stop twitching when the Scrappersap slipped across the table or when someone poured too much into their cup. It had been too late. By the time he was ordering another round everyone had gotten annoyed at his insistence and left. Ersa had stopped laughing because she wouldn’t have laughed at their father, nor smiled at his ways possessing and haunting after so many years. 

He owed her that day. Perhaps, because of it, she had taken with her the day when he might be something she would not be ashamed of.

Aloy checked his pockets but there was nothing in them. She made sure there wasn't a flask clutched in his left hand when he wouldn't have one. Then she frowned, and he couldn't blame her for expecting what he'd made of himself. For thinking that he would do what he could be expected to do if she wasn't there. 

"Where are you going? Erend!" 

There was no fire outside, nor green eyes burning with flames of disgust.

* * *

He had barely blinked. When he spoke his voice shattered, and every now and then he seemed not to breathe. Erend had asked her to write Ersa’s name on the ground in Old One’s glyphs as if asking was forbidden. 

She had grabbed a rock and put it in his hand. They had written each glyph together, first “Ersa”, then “Erend” right below, against the flames. Her hand had moved firmly because she had already written the name once. As if she had written it hundreds of times and it was, as it had not been, easy. 

It had one more glyph. Erend had stared at those extra lines in his name: maybe he was always supposed to survive Ersa and never knew it. Maybe he had always believed he would die first because no one had taught him the glyphs of the Old Ones. He had smiled and Aloy had disliked his smile. He never talked about his own future. Perhaps he thought he didn't have one.

The stone and the earth had crunched and under the names there were two more: Rost's and her name. She had drawn a straight line next to them to say “They are the same length” and looked at him. Erend had stared at the ground and her legs and her hands and had smiled again in that strained way, his eyes downcast. She still wished he would smile only when he was happy. 

When she tried to say more, he had said they would talk later. She had stood, ready to make it to the Broadheads together, to make sure they used the same machine so that Erend would lean on her after a while and let her carry him to Meridian as he slept. He was ashen, sweating. Sick.

Erend had walked and rode in front of her all along.

Later could have been the heat of noon, the first time she shook her head because she needn’t stop. The sunset was not a good time either, nor the night, and the fire casting shadows on the cave had betrayed her again: the past few days had taught her fire made people gather, talk and laugh, but that one took Erend far. Somewhere he only sat, gritted his teeth. Gnawed and gnawed missed chances. 

She had swallowed noisily as if the water was not wilted but fresh. He had not drunk. He hadn’t wanted dried food. She had run when her body couldn’t run, shot arrows when it had no strength to tense a bow. Then she had done it again, because he hadn’t eaten much in almost two days and it made her anxious, the way his skin had begun to cling to his nose. Maybe he’d eat if they roasted until the skin was crispy and the smell covered how their words abridged.

Erend was still trapped in the fire when she returned to the cave after wondering, at least many times, if it bothered him that she was there. If he wanted to be alone. If he didn't, but didn't want to be with her. Then, as though he had been waiting for the very moment to teach her a lesson, he had said, “Don’t follow me.” 

In the cave, there was only her and the plucked animal at her feet: uneaten, unused. Useless.

* * *

"Why are you still wearing that? Weren't you going to buy new armor at Pitchcliff? Didn't have enough time or what? Damn, you're freezing.” 

"I should have. Not that you needed my help."

"That didn't matter when you decided you didn't need mine." 

"I can take care of myself."

"Hammer to steel, do I know.”

Erend knelt by the bags and grabbed the two blankets waiting just next to where Aloy was. He tied them to make them bigger and more comfortable. The knots bulged because there was too much cloth in them, too much strain in his palms. Aloy moved when he let them fall over her lap. They fell to the ground. 

“What I don't know is why force yourself to stay? You had important things to do." He sucked his cheeks in and stood. He needed the Broadhead, and to use the Broadhead he needed Aloy. 

"Are you kidding me?" 

"There's no reason to torture yourself, we'll reach Meridian soon anyway. Why? Want to say goodbye already? The deal was helping us to find Ersa. We found her." 

The flames crackled too many times before she looked up and at him. "What kind of — why do I bother asking? You’re not going to tell me,” Aloy said and shivered.

She had kept the fire going while he was gone and the cave, where they were, was warm despite the draught hauling the smoke outside. But it wasn’t a spasm. It could’ve been but it wasn’t. It was the damn cold and that stupid armor that he had known, but not realized, she was still wearing.

Erend sat down on the other side of the fire, took off his gloves and slapped them on his calves. He took off his belt and the first vest around his trunk, threw the second one on top, and there was still the huge piece that covered his entire chest. He didn't have the strength to take it off. The flames warmed his palms and feet through the wicker of his soles. 

Aloy rubbed her elbows when she thought he couldn't see her, the palm rubbing the forearm with a hiss. It would strangle her someday, the pride that came out of her ears like a third leg to make sure the blankets stayed where they were, that no casual breeze would come in and pick them up and blow them over her. 

He hated, and he was appalled that going from regret to hate happened to him, that there was something in him that could still demand: he hated Ersa's recklessness, the bristled skin on Aloy's arms, the headstrongness they shared. That she wouldn’t cover herself with a blanket while she still had the privilege of getting warm. 

“Right, you wanted to talk. About? The part in which you asked me to leave you alone? I understood that well, I think. You mean the part in which I have no right to worry about you? Oh, must be the one about my worry being a lie. Maybe both? Pity you don't have a hammer because that steel may need some pounding.” 

"I'm sorry.” 

"Unheard of. But thank you, Aloy, that was about the least you could do. Guess that settles it."

"I should have gone to Pitchcliff on my own. I'm faster alone." 

"I wasn't good enough to know about your Stormbird adventure, so...sure. Sorry I wasted your time." Aloy kicked a small rock to do the same with what he was saying. He waited, but she didn’t reply. "And you cleaned up Dervahl's whole camp by yourself, helped me with Ersa, and why not? You also saved all of Pitchcliff on your own. I owe you a lot, don't I?"

"I didn't do it for you, so you don't owe me anything, don’t worry." 

"Right. It's just stuff you have to do. So what does it include? So I know what else I can get. I don't know, what about dying? You clearly don’t mind." Erend stood, paced, felt the acid rising in his throat and the acid made him look at the fire. The fire burned. "I'm getting the hang of this funeral thing. What should we do at yours? I'll be sure to say at least three times that you were faster alone. You like saying it so much.”

Aloy stood up. He was not allowed to look at her from above. "You said nothing when I took care of the Glinthawks so you could find Marad's spy. You said nothing when I took care of the machines that wouldn't let us through. I get hurt all the time. Now you care?"

"Care? I was just about to go looking for you at that damn mountain when you showed up!” 

"And why didn't you just say that!" 

"Because you left and said nothing! You left me behind! How can you think I've been... what was it, acting nice? But hey, it's Erend, the useless drunk. Ersa threw him out too, right?"

"If I wanted to throw you away I would have done it long ago!"

“I thought you might be dead! Have you any idea what I’ve if you too…” He had to stop to breathe in, to keep inside what should not be said. “Look, I’m a useless ass. I am. But I don’t lie. If you take that from me — I’ve nothing.” He opened his arms wide to prove there was nothing left to lose, nothing but an empty body if she didn't let him feel what he felt, say what he thought and be true that he thought it. “I invited you to my house. I was proud that my friends became your friends. So you know what? Even useless drunks deserve more respect than that. Your arrow went straight for the heart, really, I can see you never fail!”

Her chest hitched. Aloy stepped forward, backward, clenching her fists, holding her excess. "The only one who cared about me is dead. I should have known he wouldn’t abandon me but I didn’t, and I should have saved him, but I didn’t! I don't fail? You knew I did! So why did you trust me!"

"Then why didn’t you trust me! Why trust no one! Maybe you should pull your head out of your ass and see you're not an outcast anymore!”

"Bastard!"

“How can you say you could have saved her if I hadn’t been there! To me! Fire and spit, you don't think I have enough shit on my plate already?”

He slid away because he wouldn’t be merciful in his unjustness, Aloy advanced on the tangent. She took one more step, grabbed the blankets. Threw them. Her finger pointed at the fabric to make it slide down his chest into his hands.

"Why do that? You're not the only one who wants to make Dervahl pay. I didn't need you to hide that you were hurt, I didn't need help, and I don't need you to pretend! Ersa's dead!” 

Erend deflated: he didn’t know what they were shouting anymore, what he had wanted to make her say, make her do. If Aloy could only imagine him in such a vile way or if it was the damage that others had done to her over the years, accumulated, building a wall he couldn’t see. He tried, but could not convince himself that after so many days together she could not think of him like that. 

She had to know that if it hadn't been for her Ersa would have died alone. That he had rage, bile seething in his stomach, lurches of emotion that he did not know how to restrain, but that he wouldn’t blame her. He wouldn’t blame her if she had left, if she hadn’t helped him when she didn't owe anyone anything. If she hadn’t stayed to endure the onslaught of a grief that was not hers, but his. 

“Yeah, she's dead, and this is useless,” Erend said. “Let’s sleep. We won't get more than a few hours' rest.” 

"Oh no, you don't get to say your part and leave without hearing mine!” 

"Didn't you say I don't care about you? Now you care what I think? Leave me alone!"

"You say you don’t lie — then have the guts to say you don’t want me here!”

"Aloy... shut up."

"Coward." She pushed, pushed against his shoulder, became a furious thing inside his grip. "Why look at me so much if I disgust you? You left the cave just to sit right outside and do nothing for hours! Coward!"

He grabbed her by the forearms, drawing her to himself, making sure she heard every poorly said word because it would be hard to say them, that she heard it all.

"You think you know everything, don't you? Bad news then, because you haven't been more wrong in your life! My sister was burning in that damn fire and all I could think about was you, so _ leave _? I don’t want you to leave, I want to kiss you! I want to fight by your side, and I don't want you to think you can't rely on me! But guess what? It should have been me who faced Dervahl, I should have known some stupid Shadow Carja couldn't have killed her, and it's me and not her who should have died! So sorry if I can't help but wonder why you’re still here when you couldn't wait to leave a few hours ago. There, is that enough for you?"

Aloy had no face when he pushed her away, when she stood there, her arms limp, lifeless, quietly mangling the last of his dignity. The cave behind his back held him together because he couldn't. Erend scraped his head against the rock. The sounds of his flesh rasping against the edges filled his ears. Dervahl wouldn't wait for his hand to heal, for enough time to pass. Broken hands didn't kill. 

"Maybe you should have for thinking that. Didn't you hear what she said? Ersa wanted to protect you!”

Erend heard himself laugh. The laughter came out slanted, grim, with a few fingers stretching the skin over his forehead. It was hard opening his eyes, and when he did, it was harder to keep them open. 

“Yeah, I’m sure you believed that.”

"She used her last breath to say it, so yes, I do. If you cared that much about who was to blame you wouldn't be doing the one thing Ersa didn’t want you to do. Why do you think she made sure to say it wasn’t your fault? So you would be saying this? The last I saw of Rost was his hand before the fire swallowed him. I couldn't even hear him scream in pain because I was unconscious. You have no right to think Ersa died for nothing!” 

“You didn't know her! Everyone thought it should’ve been me when she first died, and that's what they're going to think now because it's true! Why? Just why are you still here? I beg you, I do. I won’t drink. There’s nothing to drink here, see? Go. I’m sure you can stop Dervahl by yourself. You’ll be faster alone now too!” 

Aloy came to him like one of those little drops that sneak in between stones — the kind no one sees or suspects, the ones that crack you in half and put their hands on your hands to pull them away from your eyes and force you to listen.

“I know you won’t drink, are you stupid? Ersa wanted you to grow up, save Meridian, and take over the Vanguard. You want it too. I’ve told you already, you need to pull yourself together. This is your war, Erend, not mine.”

“Yeah, well, she should’ve picked better.” 

Aloy huffed as if he had told another one of those bad jokes that made her roll her eyes just a little. "She chose well. And if you care what people say, I didn't know her, but I know you, and I'm glad you're alive.”

His chest got caught in his throat and his throat in his tongue. He wanted to believe: everything Aloy said sounded so clear and so certain, and made him feel that there was something in him that was worthwhile, something that could pay back the price of a life. 

Ersa could have suffered less if he had eaten faster, if he hadn’t slept as much, if he hadn't grumbled when Pitchcliff stood over them and he thought, for a brief second, he would never see Aloy again. He didn't know which moments counted for other moments, what price he had paid for them, or how to price them. To determine how much guilt he was entitled to.

He couldn't know, so it had to be it all. The boundless was a stone: his eyelids were heavy and every eyelash, every hair on his eyebrows, and those on his beard; he could not cope with them. 

Erend grabbed Aloy's hands and pressed them against his temples until he felt her nails on his skin, until each of the dozens of days that had passed since Ersa had first died, and the few weeks in which his life had become another life, palpitated. He wanted to bleed them. Get them out of himself and heal.

Cracks split through his skull: Aloy’s breath was hot. Hot as the breath of the living, hot as his hands sliding down and up to her shoulders and her fingers barely touching his palm. Her collarbones spreading out quickly, too quickly. He couldn't know how Aloy was looking at him. What she was thinking when he leaned on her, when she saw him in his weakness. Defeated.

Erend closed his eyes, “You don't know how to give up, do you?” 

"Apparently, I do." 

A pounding heat stretched across his upper lip and under his nose. Aloy frowned, startled, as if he hadn't been there and suddenly were just to make her stumble. Somehow he had her wrist in his hand, then a hand on her waist, his fingers —careful fingers— on her face. 

Lips caught other lips. Two small hands were tight on his elbows and he couldn't squeeze his shoulders any more, shrug them further to touch her with more lightness, with more shame so that she'd escape once what he was doing came upon her.

But her weight fell on his hands planted firmly on her back. He envied, because he didn't remember what it felt like the first time a tongue slipped down your throat, when two lips pulled the skin over your windpipe and you couldn’t think. He climbed up to her chin. It tapped his forehead, touched his nose, hit his mouth. Her fingers dug into his shoulders.

Aloy’s mouth, although it wasn’t supposed to, kissed him: she rammed her face into yours, a reckless kiss to steer clear of hesitation, to mask the lack of skill. He whispered "Damn you”, and she didn't know what to expect, Erend kissed.

He kissed her as he had wanted to kiss her the day they met, a greeting kiss, a bet, one that asked if she'd like him to grab the back of her neck or if she'd rather have his thumb caressing her temple. 

He kissed her as he wished he had not imagined kissing her when she stood on the wreckage at Dimmed Bones claiming the dead were undead; being, for once, a small piece of the world not abandoning him. Aloy knew he had swapped kisses because she let his tongue beg for forgiveness, and the kisses were languid, sorrowful.

He touched her as he had wanted to when her body was so easy to desire next to him in the Alight and he learned he could still feel, feel things so good he wanted to dream to relive and not to make time go by faster. He ran his hands over her arms, across her back, learning where and how to touch so that the weight hanging from his neck would be more. So that Aloy gasped again at what limbs and hands felt and did. 

Her nose slid down his nose. When he spoke his voice was hoarse, muffled. "You know how glad I was when I heard you had won the Proving? Even if you were hurt, I thought...“Damn, she made it”. I'm sure Rost didn't regret a thing.” He took her hand and used one to touch his lips, held both to his breath, rubbed them to warm them, blowing and rubbing and blowing. “Not a thing.”

Aloy breathed densely. He kissed her palms, not believing he could put them on his face and be relieved that her bluntness left no room for his uncertainties, that she left him no place to hide in and lose himself. He couldn’t tell. If she had meant what she had said and if he could, precisely then, not want to be unhappy; if it would be too outrageous not to be guilty only for a brief moment and let himself be comforted.

"Neither did Ersa,” Aloy said. “I don’t regret it either."

If he could not know how to apologize for so many things. "You?"

"I've saved you a few times already. I’m sure I'll do it again.” 

If she would hate him for almost smiling. “Ouch? Then we’ll save each other. What? It worked so far.”

“Sure, I'll let you believe that. Then...that’s how we’ll handle this. It’s handled.” 

She swallowed and looked at their hands together, lingering. It almost didn't hurt when she pulled back sharply. Erend staggered to the left when she did to the right, and every step was a stumbling block, every glance a reason to stop glancing. Aloy scurried to the still-feathered goose as if finishing the plucking could not be delayed any longer.

"Still a while to go before dawn,” she said. “Are you hungry?"

“Uh? Yeah...sure?”

“Then I'll go and get a better branch. The one you picked up earlier is too gnarled." She pointed at the animals, insisting, as if just using what they had on hand was not enough.

“I can—”

“It'll take too long without the Focus. Stay here." 

“I mean, where would I go, right?” Aloy nodded three times blankly before turning around. Even his earlobes throbbed. “Hey, you...okay?” 

"I'm good.”

"So...we are...good?" 

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. Good. Well...don't take too long, maybe?"

“I won't leave without telling you first, Erend...not anymore. I’ll be right back.”

She jumped over the tripwire and ran. Erend kept nodding at the same pace as she had nodded, counting every second, carefully lifting a finger each time he passed sixty. He took off the rest of his armor, unrolled the bedrolls so they were very close, then very far apart, then just close, always making sure the counting continued. He had no fingers left to lift. 

Aloy had not returned.

* * *

There had been a breeze, a draft of fresh air she had not noticed until the two stood still. Stiff. His hand had covered her nape. Each strand of her hair had bent to touch him.

Erend had cursed her for stealing something unutterable but he had kissed her, and she wasn't sure how to do it, but she had kissed him, and every time his lips moved there had been a twinge, a jolt from her throat to her navel: she had been invisible, but now there was someone who sought her when she left, who expected her when she came, who made her invisible no more. 

Aloy leaned her back against the limestone and tightened the branch in her hands. She leaned over the edge as if Erend were not inside the cave, but some thirty Thunderjaws looking for her: he was lying on the bedrolls, his head on one and his feet, barefoot, on the other. He was breathing slowly. She could still not breathe well when she looked at him.

Out of all the Nora's talk the only one that had seemed true was that she wasn't meant to do those things she had learned outcasts didn’t deserve, and if they thought they did, they couldn’t do them. She didn't need anything to tie her down or keep her from slipping away, not as long as Rost waited to hear her stories, as long as she could follow him wherever he went. 

But she had known. Erend would curl his lips more when she looked at them, when she couldn't stop looking at his lips and he at hers. When she saw, with sudden clarity, that he did not look away because he did not want them, but because he did. 

She had known, more so, when he said he wanted to kiss her: she, somehow, was going to kiss him. Perhaps she had known even then, when Erend heard that Rost was dead because it was she, and not he, who had abandoned him, and his scowl had softened. It was the first time she had heard herself confess too because the words she had used so far were different.

They didn't say that she should have known to see him in the trees, running and worrying that she had taken the old path that no one survived, but that he had assumed that she could do it, and if she didn't, it would only be her fault. They didn’t say it, because Rost reminded her often that she was on her own; otherwise, she would take it for granted that he would always be there. She had to need no one.

The words she used imagined him nodding like people nod when what should be done is done. Merely confirming, as it should have been, that she had won the Proving. For this, her words had hidden that she was sorry when they did: Rost barely smiled, but he lied when he said it was the right thing for her to return to the tribe. He nodded and did it more and more slowly. He would stay silent.

The lure had made her return. She had something to offer, something to raise in her hands to say “I earned my place here”. It had worked, and when it didn’t, she had been sure by the time they reached the cave — it hadn’t been enough. She hadn’t been enough. Erend hated her as Rost would have hated her if he had been alive. You were brave or you were not, you were just or you were not. There was only one choice between having survived and not having survived.

But Erend was not dead so he spoke, and when he spoke, he said her mistake had not been to let Ersa die, but to leave him. Her words hadn’t said it, so she had only grasped it: what terrified her was that Rost had seen her win, that he had felt forgotten, and that he had died wondering why, after so long, she couldn't see it. That she had chosen whether she was alone or not, and chose the simple reason that there was no one there with her. 

She had wanted Erend to make her feel justified, to ground that old echoing cry that said survival required perfection and that if something failed, it was her fault. She wanted him to condemn her, but Erend kissed with his eyes so closed they trembled. 

He made the words that never sounded have a sound, and when she heard, she learned she liked the sound of Rost laughing quietly because she had won the Proving, the warmth under Erend’s reproach. How not having trusted was more bearable than not having saved. She had kissed as if abandonment were a layer wrapped around Erend and each kiss was tearing it away, ripping what she had made him feel, the mistake she couldn’t bear to make again. She had kissed and Erend had made her better.

Then, without notice, kisses ended.

She had not known where to look. She had not known what to say. Erend's upper lip was so red blood gushed if she squinted in his stead. His whole mouth had swollen. Then they were just standing there again, again that silent, and her stomach was making sounds, rumbling noises. Her chest was thumping. Erend was hearing everything because the hubbub grew louder when he didn't know what to say either. 

She had to go. 

Leave that tickling relief of the truths that could only be said in the greed of their trust, a trust that wanted to be trusted more. Aloy dropped herself to the ground, snuggled her legs and wished she could do it all over again. Who slams skulls trying to kiss? And who leaves after leaving? Her chest hurt, but the pain was subdued, incredulous, as if it didn’t know if she had kissed or if it felt unreal because she had only imagined it. Aloy stood.

"What hap—" She, who never lost her grip, squeaked. Erend sprang to his feet. Aloy swallowed and swallowed so that the spit made a weight in her throat, so that there’d be nothing in her making noise if she managed to get closer to him. “What happens now?”

"With...?” 

Her finger led him to his chest. To hers. How did he expect her to know what happened after you kissed? Erend stepped forward, undid it. Did it again.

“Oh, like...nothing happened? Sure, I—” His eyes did short, jerky movements as he went back and forth between her feet and the hole where she had come through. He studied her face. His mouth opened and closed, his eyes opened and closed. “Or...we could...practice.”

"You mean throwing my head around like a projectile? I thought you wanted to make it to Meridian alive." 

"Hey, let me find that blaze and my head is all yours. I’ll add the rest for free." He scratched his neck, then the right side of his head. "So... that means practice? Sure you won’t regret after seeing it's my face that close or something?" 

"It might have been difficult to breathe...sometimes. Do you want to? _ Practice _."

"Yeah?" 

"That's a question."

"Fire and spit, you don’t know? No, I don’t mean — I know that was the first time for you. Sorry. I do. I really do." 

He had said "the first time" like he wanted to be sure it was or as if she had kissed so badly that it could only have been the first time. The cave could have fallen on her and her pride would have stumbled less. Aloy nodded to raise her nose, her chin. To glare. 

Erend sighed and reached out his hand, “Come here?” He stirred his hand once. Then again. Her shoulders stretched, juggling the odds, sending doubt and embarrassment leaping over her head. 

The first step was so small her body didn't move. The second made Erend impatient. On the fourth, she made some progress at last, and Erend leaned over and grabbed her. Her toes were the only thing touching the ground: after too many days, their bodies stopped searching because they found.

“I’m sorry” was a string of tickles because no one had ever whispered in her ear from so close. Extending her arms put her wrists exactly on the back of his neck, and she liked his length and her length, and his shirt swirled to the front and hugged her too. They swayed as if it were not silly, with a cadence that was just the right cadence: each end of the curve tightened them up more and better. 

Aloy recognized that mellowness because she'd been that exhausted before. Erend kissed one eyelid before he kissed her on the other. He threw her headband to the ground. The bracelet in her left arm made the same thud as the one in the right before sliding towards the fire and staying halfway through, swiveling. 

The brief kiss on her left cheek echoed through the cave. The prickles left by his beard moved to her right jaw, and to her nose again as she undid the knot on the cloth around her hips: her belts, the silk, and the bags circled her feet. All of their armor, his and hers, was spread out on the ground.

All was new and yet there were no stumbles nor more mistakes: Erend kicked the bedrolls together and dragged her to them. She landed on his chest as if it weren't the first time she'd rested her head on a man’s chest, as if she'd hesitated a hundred times before passing an arm over a stomach. 

“Hard to breathe, uh? Show me. To practice?” 

“It's not your fault." 

"Why not? I like how you breathe, and that you breathe too, so let’s not change that." 

"It was you who found her. No one else was searching for Ersa but you. You didn’t abandon her.”

He closed his eyes. The laces of his shirt were undone, and she saw the skin twitch, the neck swell. Aloy twisted her head so she could look at him, sure he wouldn't say anything else. That he had fallen asleep. 

Erend put his fingers inside her hair. "Touch me.”.

His hand didn’t ask her hand if it wanted to get under his shirt, if it wanted to be pushed, her knuckles rubbed. Aloy tapped. Tapped and tapped. Stroked. The hairs on his chest wrapped around her fingernails. 

Erend rolled over and embraced her so they looked at each other. "Ersa was dead, then she was alive. Then she had been kidnapped. By the one man I was not supposed to suspect, the one I could not suspect because, they said, he was dead. Then she was...tortured, then..."

She didn't know what to say. She held him tighter and from the new view, she saw his beard was all messy. It got messy when he slept, when he ate. When he kissed her. The thought brought her a new sense of complacency, that her body did things to his body in that way, that only the two of them could know why his moustache was disheveled. She moved her fingers through the short hairs, combing, tidying up as if doing so would fix him up inside. 

"A month ago I was in a tavern with Ersa and the boys trying not to think about having to wake up early the next day. She gave me the worst rounds, you know, so no one would think she treated me better than the rest. When we first met in Meridian...I didn’t know who had done it. Or why. I could just...think about that. Who had killed her. Now all that goes through my head is how long she was in that cell and what he did to her.” 

"Thinking about it won't change anything."

Erend looked into her eyes because she was right and he didn’t want her to be, waiting that perhaps she would say something else, that if he kept looking at her she would have a way of dealing with their bad memories. She didn't know. His helplessness bothered her. She could relate to it but not solve it. 

“One day,” he said.“No thinking, no...judging, nothing but you and me and getting to Meridian. Fast. Then you’ll leave and I’ll deal with it. All of it, I promise. But now...I just don’t know what I’m supposed to feel anymore. Please.”

If there was grace, it did not come from rituals done by Matriarchs, nor by Sun-priests imploring to the sun. It came from her hand covering his face, from their heads nodding and sealing a sacred bond, and from Erend closing his eyes as if running her thumb over his eyebrows was enough to make him whole again. At least, for one day.

Erend got up on one elbow and dragged her closer to the fire. "Why are you so cold? You're ice."

The fabric went up and down. They were both inside his shirt, below the blankets, and it was nonsense that his shirt was so wide that it would fit both of them, that he had to use an arm cuff so it wouldn’t move too much. They laughed, still not sure if they could laugh. There was a lull in embracing a body, a softness in his belly and a hardness in his chest she liked, so she didn’t say that she wasn’t cold when he kept saying that she was. When he rubbed her back so desperately that her skin burned. 

Erend cheated: kisses didn't start when two mouths touched. He moved his chin a little bit forward, a little to the right, followed hers to the left. Noses nuzzled. The pieces of sand and rock that had stuck on his skin rolled back into her arms, and from his arms into her waist, and perhaps one of them ended up between their lips because he tasted salty. Salty and hot, like Meridian’s air.

* * *

The world was sinking. Aloy had a palm over his chest, a coo around his fear:"You’re not late. See, it’s dark. Just dreams.” Her pulse was thick under his thumb. They dripped sweat. She hugged him back. The fire was embers, and the blue dots in the distance moved regularly, circling in the sky above the earth, following the rhythm of the gray clouds that shone far away over the mountains. 

Erend moved Aloy to the curve between his chest and shoulder so he could look at her closely, to touch her ears and the blue bead on her hair he had wished to play with so many times. He didn't try to kiss her, just huddle her to feel her breath on his chin, the almost weightlessness of her body. The rhythm of her breathing cradled him.

Early dawn’s misty light was bouncing off the walls of the cave when he woke again. He had not slept well, as if he had fallen asleep at some point and woke up at another equally indistinguishable moment and both were, in fact, the same. Aloy had slipped down and out from his shirt, or his shirt had slipped out of them. 

He lifted her arm from his waist and shifted carefully so as not to pull her hair, so as not to wake her up as he groped on the floor. He didn't know how or when he had left his hammer so far away. His boots would make a racket, so he went outside barefoot to the small stream he had heard yesterday. It had seemed, in the midst of the starry darkness, a whisper, the stealth of a machine, the one he wouldn't have run away from if any had seen him.

The grass rustled as he walked, when he stood by the little brook and saw his own reflection waving above the current. He was pale, ghastly, but the two thick eyebrows were still there and the two blue eyes were still looking at him with that old tiredness he could not conceal from himself.

He had expected half of his face to be disfigured, full of pustules, festering, revealing all the things he had felt in the last hours, the good and the bad. But he looked, somehow, unchanged. Erend reached out and wiped his face and rinsed his mouth. He wondered what Aloy saw when she looked at him, if he had been chosen or if he had just been available. She couldn't know there was a difference. The cold water revived him when it fell down his neck and over his armpits. 

Aloy was still sleeping when he returned to the cave. At the appointed time, or so he imagined, the Focus started to shine, shooting blue lights over his and her face and the fire he had made far from her to roast the goose. He hadn't known what to think when Aloy dismissed his worry: they wouldn't oversleep because she would set an alarm. 

“Fire and spit, so that's what it was. Effective, for sure,” he said. Aloy grunted at least three times before throwing herself back onto the bedroll, swirling as if she were one of those long scrolls Marad moved from there to there all the time. "Why, don’t you just love being woken up with flashes of light shot over your face?” 

"There's a simpler one but I thought I'd better play it safe.” She glanced at him sideways with only one eye. “Stop smiling like that."

"How?"

"I don't know. Like that."

"I'm just thinking that you look nice...you know, when you wake up. Haven't been able to see it until now." 

Aloy sat with her back to him. "Then stop thinking.”

Her feet shuffled all over the place. Threats said he'd end up strung up next to the geese if he didn't stop staring at her like that, in that way that she couldn't describe either. A kiss announced itself when they talked, when they looked at each other, one neither of them gave because the awkwardness and the shyness they had been too tired to notice last night were almost as prideful as she was.

It took strategy: she got as close to him as he got close to her, grabbed his hand suddenly after he did, and stood very still in front of him when they finished gobbling up the quickest morsel he had ever eaten as he grabbed his belt. He didn’t know why, but his uniform was a list of tasks she had to execute meticulously and unusually fast.

"This goes here?" Erend raised his left arm. Aloy squinted, examining the buckle and strap.

"Yes,” he said. “Do you want me to...?"

"No." She yanked him to the left, then to the right, then backed away when he tried to kiss her nose. “Stop distracting me.”

"Is that something Nora, letting someone strap your armor for you?" 

She stood still, moving a prong up and down between her fingers. "You did it yesterday. Well, you took it off, but...” She averted her gaze because he couldn’t hide he had just wanted to embrace her, and that for her it had meant affection in a way she hadn’t known until then. “This is stupid, I shouldn't—"

Erend put one hand on each of her hands. "Yes, you should. Finish." 

To kiss you had to have a mouth and know when to kiss. To touch, you had to have skin and know when to touch. She didn't know. He did. He kissed her when the last buckle made a click, against the back of her Broadhead before grabbing her by the waist and helping her climb up, and above their mounts when they stopped to decide whether to avoid a group of Longlegs through the left or through the right. 

He couldn’t do it as much as he wanted to, so he pretended to be thirsty and made her stop only when he needed another caress to forget for a while longer, when he doubted and the fear wouldn’t let him be sure that she had not regretted it yet unless she kissed him back. Then it was night. 

"You'll sprain your neck if you keep trying to evade my eyes,” Aloy said. “You're falling asleep.” 

"We can reach Meridian in a few hours if we push it. Hammer to steel, Aloy, we've saved so much time!"

“My arrows won’t dart perfectly with five hours of sleep in two days. Bet yours won't either. We're going there to do more than just drop dead at the door.”

"You sure? I might be more useful as dead weight. It's a joke! Damn, woman..." 

Erend scanned the horizon enjoying, with some guilt, the look of disgust she had made. The Spire fit between his fingers. He squeezed them as if he could squeeze the huge metal tower, as if he could stretch it out with both hands and make them already in Meridian just by extending his thumb..

"Let's get to Cut-Cliffs,” Erend said. “We can sleep under a roof for a few hours, eat decently, and Meridian would be right around when we wake up. It'll take another hour at most. Besides... my ass could really use a bed. And the rest of me too." 

Aloy shifted in discomfort over her Broadhead. "You're going to get us killed. So? Lead the way."

Cut-Cliffs was a headache for Avad: all it had was a quarry with occasional Rockbreakers that took days to hunt and a bunch of sad-faced workers who came and went from a place where water was scarce. They hauled in the rock the masons turned into more manageable pieces and the craftsmen carved to make them part of Meridian. No one wanted to live there. 

In fact, the imaginary influx of travelers who would rather pay less than sleep within the walls of the capital ensured that the best hostel was still on the outskirts of the town, in a small fortified area where the air didn't taste like chalk and sore throat.

“By the Sun, I’m coming! Coming!” 

Erend pounded on the door again, knowing that no one would open at that hour in a place like that if he didn't. A line of light made him frown, and another line of old Carja woman glanced at him through the ajar door. He bent down to make sure she saw him well. 

"Captain!" 

"I need a bed. By any means." 

The sound of a lock being opened became the sound of at least four or five locks being opened in a hurry. "Come in, come in!"

The couple that ran the hostel was wiry and a tad surly, as if she were strict and he was standoffish, and thanks to that they had managed to get around all the problems of being a stopover for all sorts of strangers and their hustle and bustle. 

The smell of fireside had almost made him fall asleep when a couple in their nightclothes came screaming down the stairs: pillows, sheets and complaints about the room where they were being hauled to completed the parade. Aloy raised her eyebrows as he crossed his arms, exhausted, and the awkward sensation he had felt since a short while ago made sense: there, in the confines of Meridian, he was again the captain of the Vanguard. 

The innkeeper approached them satisfied that a gruff look from the uniforms he paid for with his taxes had quickly fixed the situation, vigorously tightening the long piece of white silk he had tied around his slacks to make himself, if possible, more presentable. "Follow me, please."

The stairs seemed to never end before they led them to a corridor as clean and rickety as the rest of the place. The man was pointing to a pile of well-cut and lined logs next to the chimney as soon as they went inside the closest room. A closet opened before his overly fancy stride, revealing towels, sheets, and more white cloth as pristine as his shawl. The table was gleaming, the chairs did not limp, and the bed —that huge bed that Aloy ignored because it meant nothing to her— was a bowl of fluffy clouds. 

"Do you have any food?" Aloy said. "It doesn't matter if it's cold. We'll pay double for anything." The man nodded before heading for the stairs. The door closed quietly.

"I don't know how I managed to climb all those stairs." Erend took off his gloves. His hands were red from squeezing the wires around the Broadhead's neck for hours. Even his little finger hurt. 

"I didn't know you had that... authority. It’s the first time I've ever walked into a room this expensive. Can't see why pay any more." 

Erend sat on the bed and threw his boots away without any consideration, flapping his feet. Aloy watched him and began taking her armor off. "There are lots of machines going around here. Not exactly the best for a place that expects to attract tired travelers, so the Vanguard helps out often. Come see why pay more." 

"What?" 

"Just come." Aloy approached the edge of the bed without knowing her fate: she fell on him like a flat iron and, before her instinct made him lose his eyes, he rolled her over to the bed. He nudged her and she kept being there, slightly stunned. "So? Would you pay for this?"

"It hurts to stretch my back over such soft things. Is that normal?"

Erend grabbed her hand. Aloy moved her hair over the silk of the sheets. The noise made him sink into the beddings. "At first I thought it was from fighting, then from training. I can't remember a time when something didn’t hurt, so I don't know."

"You mean you never get hurt hunting machines?"

"Me?" Aloy rolled her eyes and started getting out of bed. He grabbed her by the waist. "You put it there, you won't take it off?" He patted the steel that covered his stomach.

"You can do it yourself."

"Yeah, but don't you miss me after all these hours? I'm beginning to take offense."

To kiss you had to have lips, know when to kiss, and want to kiss. She knew, he wanted, she did too. The knocks on the door woke him up: Aloy had nothing but the blue silk and leather strip covering her breasts and those leather pants with cutouts that made him forget where they were. All he had on were yellow stripes, white stripes, and orange on his legs. He was all spotty, dirty. His head spun around when he tried to stand up.

Two plates of burning stew and almost fresh, tender bread changed the smell of the room: spoons bumped into their plates, bread was torn into pieces, the clean, cold water sounded as it flowed down their throats. Erend plopped down on the chair after finishing the half that Aloy had left. The spices were making his lips burn.

“Did y—” Aloy was in the middle of the bed. Her feet were on the mattress, her knees were bent. "Say, do you have any more of those herbs you put on me when I fell?”

"Are you in pain? I checked your wounds yesterday, they are healing well." 

He wondered when she had checked them, if he had been asleep when she did it. He had always envied, if only a little, those Vanguardsmen who saw the gate and began to talk about the food, the caring and the baths their women would have ready for them when they got home. Erend got up and walked to the washbasin. A quick glance helped him find the small iron pot. 

"Sort them out or do whatever you have to do with them,” he said as he raised the pot. “I'll boil some water."

The chimney crackled and, soon after, they were sitting on the bed with the pot wrapped in towels and steam rising. Aloy poured the herbs inside. When he got tired of waiting for the mixture to cool, he grabbed her legs and put her feet on his knees. 

Aloy struggled to break free. "What are you doing?

"Be still." The water burned his fingers and palm when he reached in and squeezed a bunch of herbs into his fist. "You hate having your feet touched or something?"

"I don't like to be touched.” A drawl came out faintly to say that specifying was a small inconvenience, but an inconvenience after all. "You are the exception." 

Aloy blinked as if she hadn't said something he would often think about. Erend put his hand back in the water and let the heat embrace his fingers, meet the one coming up through his arms from his chest to join them. The warmth made his bones turn soft.

"I don't like it,” he said. “That you get hurt. I didn't like it either when Ersa got hurt, or when sometimes goes bad with…” He forced himself to say it. “My men. But I learned long ago you don't tell someone who carries his pride on his hammer, or her spear, to stay put. That getting hurt isn’t worth it. What you do is important and I respect it. But I don't like it."

"I don't like to get hurt either."

"Fire and spit, then stop wearing these things when you go up a mountain, and don't put on new sandals and travel.” It had come out harsher than he had intended. “You want to go a lot of places with them, don't you? Because without feet you're not going anywhere.” Aloy examined him wondering when she had told him. She hadn't. "I saw how you checked out all those armors in the market again and again. It's in your name, right? You're going to go far."

"In my name?"

Erend nodded. "Like an alloy? Just...made of different places. Things from the past too, I guess. The way you are? Let’s say I have a thing for it. But when you've done everything you want...I hope I can see that. Someday. So take care of yourself.”

Her knees loosened and her feet became heavier on his legs. Erend packed more herbs over the wounds with care. When she hugged her knees and leaned her head over her arms, he wanted to kiss her and she noticed. Aloy moved her chin to the elbow he had closest. He kissed her forehead; she frowned and he smiled. He wished he could hide that he was thinking about saying goodbye to her. He squeezed her heels with affection.

"You will,” she said. “I’ll travel everywhere and when I'm done I will find you and be the one to tell you everything you don't know. Just wait.”

She wouldn’t be able to move with her feet full of that smelly pulp. Aloy dug her fingers into his neck when he knelt on the bed and barely lifted her up. He left her down against the headboard. 

"Damn, I would have acted more if I had known that my manners would leave such an impression on you." Her snort would sound like it should, so he chuckled even before she did. “It's a promise now, you can't go back on it. I’ll wait.”

Her face looked as incredulous when he pulled the wet towels off the bed and grabbed a clean sheet to tear it off. Saying he would leave extra shards didn't quite convince her, but when he knelt before her and put her feet on his thighs, she let him. Aloy leaned forward to watch as he wrapped her feet in the clean cloth, how he clenched his fists to make more strips. 

The patches of exposed skin on her pants excited him, and being almost between her legs. He barely managed to hold himself back until the last knot was tied: Erend took her head in his hands and kissed her. Aloy let him fall on her with no hesitation. His body was blocking out the light. He bent back, kissed her navel and ribs all the way up to her neck to show her why you groaned when you were made to groan, what he thought whenever he spent more than a few seconds observing her.

He couldn't see her as well, but he knew too what she looked like when she said, "Didn't everything hurt? You were complaining just earlier.” She was trying to hide a shortness of breath.

"Sure you want to make that face? You won't want to leave if you keep worrying about me like that."

All the air was still but that one, the gale that fell on his face and he threw back to her mouth. Aloy rolled "You wish" around her tongue and teeth, waiting for his comeback. 

"Maybe I will."

He wanted her, he had wanted her for so long and Aloy panted when his hands confessed: her legs spread wider, they gasped, but after rubbing her hips with his hips one, twice, the gasp was another gasp. A tired, regrettable gasp.The deal didn't go that far; his body, and his guilt, wouldn’t bear it..She let him pull her into him when he fell like a stone on the bed.

Erend took off his shirt, avid for her to touch him. He brushed her ear and she played with his earring. He fondled her back and she learned how many seconds it took to measure his spine with her open hand. He glued his body to hers and her navel tapped against his navel before she stayed still, snug, against his skin. He wanted to undress her just to cover her legs with his legs, to feel her breasts spread on him. To hold her naked all night before he couldn't do it anymore. 

But Aloy was exploring. Her hands moved warily, cupping his face, entangling him in her wonder, in the thin sounds of her throat and the pleasure of those kisses he never gave anymore. He didn’t know since when, but he only kissed when kisses were a promise of a long night awoke.

But she kept coming to his mouth with worry, seeking him in the dark. He'd catch her lips most of the time, she’d catch him others, they drifted sometimes. Gradually, their tongues rested: the kisses in the neck were light, and the ones in the forehead giggly, and the light pecks over her eyes fainter. Then there was silence. The few times he woke up, she was still in his arms. 

* * *

What went down between him and the man who killed his sister was a matter of perspective. For Dervahl, sinking beneath a string of not-so-successful plans, it was a deserved fate because someone like him could not have died in such a predicament.

For Avad, flanked by Peorth and Korduf, walking with the grace of a monarch, it was, inevitably, politics. So when he heard, "Shut up. You're at the Sun-King's mercy now" he nodded and didn't say a word because he knew that there was, in the way he had obeyed him, an unspoken debt, a debt that arose from not letting a man avenge his sister's death. Even if it was reasonable. Even if it was necessary. 

For the feather-headed guards who had arrived too late, for those who had tried —to no avail— to save Avad before Aloy arrived. To the Vanguard, and the Oseram who still didn't know what had happened there, he was a coward. Those who wielded weapons for a living spoke war, and the war was not waged by the Captain of the Vanguard but by Erend, avenging his sister. And he hadn't avenged her.

For Erend, Aloy was gasping at his side and it made him shameful. It had been she, and not he, who had thrown Dervahl to the ground. Aloy, who had made him hold on until they reached Meridian, who was waiting to see what he did with Dervahl served on a tray under his feet because he had to be the one to make a choice.

Her silence would understand if his hammer slipped, if his thumb couldn't stop it, if Dervahl's brains ended up dripping down the white palatial steps. But he'd have to bear her chagrined eyes when he spoke of peace, when he said she had done the right thing forgiving Olin. Erend didn’t want to be a man who could only talk about revenge. 

For the Captain of the Vanguard it was a matter of duty. Avad’s respect made Ersa's left boot bigger. Aloy's relief made the right boot tremble. Suddenly the size was perfect, and only Erend, that voice that could not carry more weight than the others, made his ankle not quite fit into those boots he had never wanted to wear. 

Those boots that were so heavy that they didn't let him shake when Dervahl disappeared, hauled by Peorth and Korduf. When he wavered, when it struck him he could have taken out half his teeth instead of just knocking him out. The Captain of the Vanguard was the one who nodded when Avad made Aloy leave Erend alone, the one who stood until there was no one left to judge him, who knew that Erend was not well.

Erend was thirsty, sunk under too many tense days. Perhaps it was the rage blinding him. Dervahl had made sure he learned what the machine he had destroyed did to your head. What it had done to Ersa. When the pain threw him to the ground and his body seized, he had wanted to put his fingers around Dervahl's neck and scrunch until every little bone cracked. Before he could avoid it, he leaned over the closest surface and threw up all over one of the palm trees 

But Aloy was about to leave. Aloy was leaving and he needed her to see him standing, robust. She wouldn't stay because she couldn't and didn't want to, but if she did, it couldn't be because he was weak. A couple of guards saw him and he let them help him. He drank and spat water and drank again. He rubbed his eyes, doubting whether she would come down by the right or the left. 

When she appeared on the staircase, Aloy looked for him. Erend kept pretending he hadn't seen her, that he was lost on the horizon and saw more than just smudges. That he had turned around to say goodbye to her as if he had not been waiting.

"Aloy...I was... thinking about Ersa. She would have killed Dervahl on the spot. I know it. That's why she went out to meet him in the first place — to put him down.” He was babbling, repeating things she knew, trying to condense events with decisions. Asking her if she thought, in the end, that he had done the right thing.

She didn't nod. She didn't not nod, either. Her face was serene, saying, "Are you okay?", as if wasting time with excuses wasn't a good way to stretch out the day and she didn’t care about them. Erend clenched the stone railing behind his back with his fingernails.

There was a quietness in the way her eyes drifted, a heaviness when she examined the floor knowing he was saying she hadn't wasted her time. That he wouldn’t let Ersa die in vain. That he was older and didn't behave like it, but that he knew how to. That he would.

He was ready to banter, to make jokes at the expense of himself as long as she smiled tilting her head in that way he liked. But Aloy’s lips chose the most appropriate words: "You did with Dervahl." 

Erend nodded, smiled because she was smiling too, and neither of them moved too many muscles to do so, just the required. "Don't give me too much credit,” he said. “Part of me still wants to wait for a quiet moment and wring his neck.”

"Yeah, but you won't. Because you're a good Captain." 

"Come on, stop. You're going to make me tear up." 

He would have done something. Erend didn't quite know what, but he would have done something if she had said, at any other time, that he was a respectable man. His foot moved like the clock only she saw, the one he needed to count the seconds every time his boot hit the ground. Seconds grew minutes.

She wouldn't go home with him, wouldn't hold his hand when the silence —that silence he had never heard before, of Ersa being gone, really gone— became final. She wouldn't go up to his bed, wouldn’t cuddle him, wouldn’t stay. He had asked for a day and that day was gone. He had to wake up.

So nothing better to say came to mind: he didn’t mention they could see each other if she ever got tired of the machines not talking, if her body hurt too much, or if she ever, by chance, passed through Meridian again. He didn’t say they didn't need excuses, that he didn't need her to be better, or different. He would be happy to see her all the time.

He could have explained that he’d let her go when the loneliness became less stifling, and that everyone got lost from time to time. He'd never judge her if she ever did, not even if she did it twice. But she wouldn’t, because Aloy never got lost, not even when she hadn't slept at all. When she was about to drop. He wished she would, so he could hold her.

Having too many things he couldn't say to her didn't matter because Aloy was more interested in the bridge. They were doing the same thing — counting the steps she'd have to take to reach it, cross it and disappear. 

"Well..." Aloy said nothing else. Erend wanted to say that there was no justice in not saying more words. In letting him be the one to say goodbye.

"I know, you’ve got to go. Killers to track, machines to master — all before breakfast. You know what? When we met, I thought I was a big shot talking to a pretty girl hidden away in the middle of nowhere. Now I see that I was just lucky to get a minute of your time. Try...not to forget about me while you’re out there, changing the world."

"I’ll always have a minute for you. Maybe even two." 

"Two? Ha! She likes me." 

He turned. Aloy used up an extra second, then two, then three. He almost said they were too expensive, to stop making noise behind his back because his fingers wanted to grab, and they were fierce, terrible, and he wouldn't be able to stop them. But she ran. 

Aloy left as she came: her hair of fire fluttered under his feet flying across the bridge, flapping in the sunset until she vanished. Beneath the platform on which he stood small bodies shook, toiling, throwing vegetables into the wagons that moved them across Meridian Village. He had, like that day, things pierced in his chest. He had said one, the one that wouldn’t make her stay, only remember. If she did.

"Captain." Marad cleared his throat. 

Erend put his knuckles on the stone of the railing again. He lifted his ankles, put his weight on his fingers. It crossed his mind, pressing until things broke. Avad would have others write those long reports he didn't know how to write well. Perhaps he could escape from having to be accountable, from having to explain what had happened, from having to write and record that he had not been able to save Ersa. How he was going to get home, he didn't know, because he barely made it to where Avad was waiting for him.

"Marad saw Aloy leaving. Did she say...something?" Avad made a gesture with his right hand. The line of nervous, disoriented guards, Marad, and the rest of the staff who had helped him pull himself together bowed and left the room.

"About?" Avad sighed. That tightness irked Erend enough — the one that rose when Ersa wasn't between them anymore. When Avad exuded guilt. When he did, ashamed of being unable to replace her. 

Yet there was something else. Avad was the type to think in silence, to say always the right thing, with no faulty words. He didn’t hesitate. "I'm sorry, my friend, I might have made a mistake. Or better said, I did. Please, let me explain." 

The fences melted, bent, oozing hot, rotten metal, and armchairs shattered and carpets frayed. A lowly Oseram had bellowed to the Sun-King. A Sun-King had said something indecent to a lowly Nora. Nothing more would be spoken of for weeks, perhaps years. 

"Erend! Who's taking care of Ersa?" 

What happened between him and the Sun-King was a spectacle: Erend spun on his heels, sure that all those eyes and ears Marad hid behind the walls, under the tiles, heard and saw. 

"Fire and spit, you do remember her! Why, you suddenly care?” 

There were people, obstacles to avoid, to push, to use as support when his legs failed. There was noise, whining, screaming, laughing that shouldn't have been. There were men in uniform nodding at him, women whispering, children running about. Meridian Gate was full of worthless, stupid things, things he did not need. Faces. None were hers, and no one cared.

Aloy was gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The "Three-Legged Cave" is actually in the game, it's around the Sun Furrows Hunting Grounds, above Dimmed Bones if I remember correctly; anyway, it's so peculiar and big it would be a good spot for those traveling north since it's between Meridian and the point where you can turn left to Maker's End (so, theoretically, to the Claim) or right to Pitchcliff/Banuk Lands. 
> 
> Thanks for reading!


	9. Brightmarket

"You said you were an adventurer?"

“Just so. The nobles of Meridian crave flowers for their balconies and gardens. So out I went, with bow and spear. No bandit or machine could keep me away from those precious petals." Kudiv, the metal flower trader, smiled knowing the precise distance between politeness and flattery, sliding from one to the other as needed.

"So, what happened?" 

"Love happened, my sweet! My paramour frets too much when I venture out. So now I collect flowers from those without such bonds." 

"Is it worth it? Being..." Aloy scratched the tip of her nose. Erend had opposed kissing her to her leaving, there had been no other reason to stay with him but pity or want. As if the only reason to leave was not to feel either. To feel nothing. _ “ _Restrained like that?"

"Of course. Freedom is sweet, but the embrace of my beautiful Theradine, sweeter still." 

The streets were sheltered under short shadows, dark vests that left the navels exposed to guide steps through pockets of light. The faces sauntering beneath the red banners and over the glossy staircases had existed before and perhaps would exist tomorrow, and as each of them, she was nobody. Another pair of feet in the aloneness. Boundless, holding the roots of every possibility. 

A couple dragging silk and laughter inspected her clothes. They must have imagined her as a Banuk huntress beset by the balmy heat of the night. When she turned and went down the stairs, an Oseram forgewoman saw in her what she did in the dozens of outlanders who wandered, looking for new luck where every luck gathered.

A lonely man watched the lilies floating over the great channel. It was always the busiest there, in that large corridor where the gazebos thronged the mesa’s east border. When those enchanted by the lights below and beyond moved to be enchanted from yet another gazebo, the man had seen her restlessness. 

He tried to assess if they were both made of the same threads, making small, short gestures should that not be the case. Aloy nodded and kept following the water’s waves. The beds in a graveyard could only be so cold: the Deathbringer had drowned in flames; each strange thud had her grabbing her spear until here had been no spare Eclipse waiting to kill her. The Grave-Hoard was huge, cold, barren, a hole sunk into the earth. She had roamed it. 

Erend had told her about the rooms where others played with death: if Elizabeth were under every rock, if bits of her were everywhere, she could know more just by collecting them. But it wasn’t a rock but a slab, that room where she had gauged life’s worth mercilessly. 

She still felt the cold. She did not know yet what had made her tremble. She had sat right across from it, squeezing her feet and hands and legs to let the room exist as if she wasn’t there. The monstrous carcass had played with her guts as if still led by the lies, the Horus stagnant and buried in the snow and the polished, forsaken metal the Old Ones had been so fond of. Vile: a mother who abandoned a child there where not having a mother was a sin.

Elisabet had been silent when Herres said time had to be paid in blood. A man had said they’d be throwing innocent people to a meat grinder. She had nodded. Herres said her project, Zero Dawn, would be the lure. Elisabeth had nodded, nodded and nodded, and she had done something worse than abandoning a child. 

The six who argued in that room had murdered the children of an entire tribe, and only the raw embrace of the thick metal beds where the condemned had once slept made the chills down Aloy’s back an inevitable response to the copious snow: there had to be a why. A reason so compelling. 

She had run to where Herres had sat, and the chair was nothing but rusty, putrid metal. She stood where Elizabeth had stood, and if she put her hands where the hologram put them they measured the same, her hands occupied the same amount of space. She nodded as she did. Then she had crawled under the map that showed the globe of the world and how the plague had spread.

The hologram blinked when she touched it, and the ice that hung from the Horus' tentacles broke when she stopped thinking. Knowing how to be still when she glanced to where the machine spied her so she could not run when it finally moved. So many others hadn’t escaped, she wouldn’t.

It hadn’t moved. It couldn’t, but the dead stacked. She was standing on them, the tallies spread in the data points that offered the same lack of reasons when you replayed and replayed them. Sylens —he who never answered— reverberated: she had chased a personal riddle into a crowd of larger mysteries. The crowd, mute and frozen in time, had been too loud, pushing her south instead of east, more aware of those who needed help and stayed close to the main roads. All the roads, past a certain distance, led to the same place. 

Meridian.

Her foot hovered over the first step of the stairs with the same uncertainty they had then when he was leading her down them. Her heels tried not to step on the stone even though the water, the dense, crashing sound of the water arches covered up her trace. Perhaps the key had stayed there for someone she did not know. Maybe Erend forgot his some days and kept the extra even though Ersa wasn't coming back. 

The first time she slept on the porch, then it had rained, she was drenched. It began then, fearing the wood would be tampered with and the key wouldn't be there when she returned. The door woke up with the same yawn, stretching with the low grunt that greeted him every day. It made her feel less unwelcome: intruders did not enter through doors. Her eyes saw into the darkness. Nothing had changed. Erend wasn't there. 

Ersa's sheets were still folded over the bed as she had left them, months earlier. Aloy shut the door with only two fingers, the same ones she used every time she regretted that a room where he hadn't dared enter gave her relief. No one who knew him would go in there, and so that tidy bed was definite proof that he wasn’t peering from somewhere, that he didn’t know she had gone back to his house in the few weeks when she had come and gone around Meridian. That she had, for the last two nights, slept in his bed. Beds left undone didn’t say what happened when no one was looking.

Another board creaked and it might have been the same as yesterday, but it was dark and she didn’t know that floor yet. The mattress bounced less than Ersa's, exhausted after being flattened for years by a larger and heavier body: that one side sloped more, so it had touched him more. She sat on the edge and let her hands take their time to hold it. Her boots remained still when her feet came out of them and settled on the bed. It would take too long to put on her shoes to run away if he stormed inside, and the panic would make her step on all the crunching floorboards. Her toes wrinkled the beddings. 

Perhaps it was his clothes in the drawer or the mattress, and after a while, it was her. She smelled of Erend, and he kept sneaking between her reasons by way of little pleasures: the other pillow played him against her back. She leaned, too stiff, reticent, and he touched her waist. It'll be done soon: she dragged her feet against the blanket because those sheets and that blanket had touched him, his arm fell on her stomach and he was there, with her, and her breath hitched. This cracked. That creaked. It wasn't him but her fingers brushing her elbow and the shame. She was alone.

Now she knew what it was to fear what your mother had done, and if who she had been meant you were capable of the same things. At first it had been a few contracts for the Lodge, then Kindiv and Nasan. Talanah had decided to hunt Redmaw, and the many days when she would cross the gate, look with her eyes and Korduf would lower his, or Vilgund would run to greet her and say, without words, that Erend had not returned yet, were over. They were over and a simple pillow against her back, just because it was his, offered her comfort. Because sleeping with him every night would perhaps make roots sink into the ground and something would blossom, as the metal flower seller had said, and she wouldn't feel trapped. But she had no roots, and she wanted them and didn’t know if they’ll ever grow, or if only Erend made them, appearing without being when her thoughts were alone and leaving her to deal with the mess. Time had passed and made her think less of Rost. Time had passed and made her think more about Erend. It didn't make sense.

Meridian Village's spree made voices come from under the bed. Eyes watched through the walls and mouths laughed. Her own thoughts laughed because a bed was just a bed, a pillow just a pillow, and there’d be traces of her lonelinessif she kept giving in. She never turned on any light, and yet he would know. What he had found in the Claim, whether it was good or bad, how it had changed him, would be back. Some nights she had wanted to turn on all the lights and stand on the porch and shout.

She left. His windows were wide open so the breeze would erase her.

* * *

  
  
  
The house he had expected to find in ruins looked like a wretched old man who wanted to keep working despite having trembling knots for knuckles. The doors staggered, either when opening or closing, and an aged, gnawed-on smell of ancient dust clung even on the frontage. But the stones remained. Around them, and in the cracks where green grew, Ersa's ashes scattered. 

He whispered to them, "Fire and spit, happy now? Now no one can say you don't belong here anymore. No one.” Erend rubbed the stones and the ground, the small young leaves, hoping others felt the same sorrowful repulsion when their hands were covered with the ashes of someone they loved. He rubbed them slow, then fast, then with care, not knowing how to clean off a sister's remains from your palms, and went inside. 

Peorth was still wiping the chimney’s shelf with his shirt, rubbing and rubbing his forearm left and right in a frenzy. The floor was full of brushstrokes, traces left behind when Vilgund moved the furniture in a vain attempt to make the place more homely. To remove the hundred layers of oblivion. The fire shone over the frayed rug.

A sleeve black up to the elbow got between him and the chimney. "I'll clean up while you work,” Peorth said. “Put her down then.”

Erend dodged. "This place won't stop being a dump for several days. She’s waited enough." 

Vilgund had done the hardest, sorting the ashes into different bundles as if they were selling goods: one for forging, one for scattering. Another to stay there, over the fireplace, for some time. The small metal jar he had chosen was round, ornated; wide enough to fit perfectly next to the paintings of a family that no longer existed. They were all dead. 

Peorth scoffed. "You know you don't have to do that, aye? What a bunch of wankers! None of us are going to think you had to, and the rest of them, hell with it!" 

Erend made sure the urn was right in the middle of the shelf, rising over the rest of his memories. "You'll say the same to the new recruits starting out in the Vanguard? You know shit, let’s give you a cannon? Yeah, I didn’t think so." 

"Then I will go with you. She was your sister by blood, but...she was also ours by heart.” 

"Fire and spit, I know you love it, but don't save my ass all the time? Look where I’m now.” The skin bunched around Peorth’s eyes. When he sighed, Erend pleaded. “I need to do this on my own.” 

“This place’s still rotten. At least it's as rotten here than everywhere.”

“Damn right.” He was not one for affection, but Peorth straightened his shoulders and bent his knees somewhat until he was sure that the elbow he had put on it was comfortable, that he could rest on it long enough so he would know he was not alone. They stood like this, sharing pain and shaking heads, against one another, as they frequently did. "I should go, Brageld must be waiting."

"You sure he's the right guy, aye? It's been some time since we did this sort of work, isn't it?" 

Erend chuckled. "You asking me? It was you who had to find out. Well...don't cry too much while I'm gone."

Peorth grumbled as though they were still two kids trying to prove themselves, fighting a world that had made them decide that smashing and burning was better than being stepped on because they weren't weak. Weak, like his father. Weak, like those who hadn't had the courage to fight what the deaths, desertions, and lack of volunteers made with the Council: Jiran's kestrels had burned down all the land, feeding able young lads wasn't the easiest. Peorth had stopped saying _father and mother_ after that night, both shy of fourteen and too short to see.

They weren't the same: no one had tossed them away for a few shards and some barley, he and Ersa, they had left on their own. Ersa had been the one who made him apologize, the one who pulled them apart when they fought again, and the plan to help Peorth escape the bullies that had recruited him was also hers. It was always her who mended the holes others made in the skin of those who did not deserve them. Erend shut the door gently when Peorth put both hands on the fireplace around her. He had been waiting until nobody else needed to lean on him to mourn.

They were noisy, clumsy, and very short next to the forge’s fires spewing burns their way. Amidst them, Brageld was half a head taller than Erend was and looked either five years younger or five years older, and he would yell and end up with a laugh coming out of a body smaller than his. If someone kinder and less obnoxious was trapped underneath that brawn, they hadn’t met. Erend pondered again how close or far to stand from the children when the same one boy reached for the handle of his hammer. He was too old to be a little kid and too young to be a man and had only two curly locks of hair, one hanging over his forehead and the other over his nape. 

"Are you stupid?"

"What?"

"Why you gotta be with the little shits? You’re so tall. So maybe you’re stupid." 

Erend flinched, jerking back. “And you're not one of them, uh? To know things you need to learn them first...I just know as much as they do.” 

"Menuf, go!" Brageld pointed to the boy and turned to Erend. The rest of the men working at the forge followed suit, holding one by one imaginary jugs of rancid, overly sour vinegar; drinking and snickering. Brageld needed a choir to show that there, in that forge, he ruled. He knew plenty of men like that. "Thought you won’t turn up."

Erend lowered his brow and sucked his cheeks in. “I said I would.” 

“So it looks. Make a blacksmith's knife and we’ll see? Must know more than you said, you bought such nice tools. Not many can pay that.”

Erend clutched the tools Vilgund had left over the main table carefully folded in leather and got to work. The hideous thing was even more ridiculous dangling from Brageld's grimy hand, and his plan had come to be exactly as everyone expected: he turned around so that all who were in that little shithole where the sad remains of their clan worked could see what the son of the man who had brought them to ruin had done. Erend went over all the reasons why it had to be there, in that place of blackened stones that smelled of piss and soot where he had to be. Brageld moved fast. He couldn't snatch the knife.

"I'll do it again." 

“Fire and spit, what for? To waste coal? Menuf! Hey, kiddo!” Menuf looked up a few fires ahead when he heard his name. “Help this friend make a knife...one that cuts.” Brageld raised his arm and stuck the knife into the trunk on his right. The blade broke.

Erend filled his chest, grabbed his attempt at a knife, and walked with a steady step between the hammering and the gnawing metal files. Through the stares that wanted to sink him, the ones that saw him and saw his father, the laughter that told him to get out of there. Menuf was sitting on the anvil as men did to boast about this and that. A long piece of grass moved on his lips as he examined him as barmen did when they didn't know whether to pour you another drink, knowing they had some form of currency few would deny.

"Let me that." He moved the blackish bits of metal in his hands, and he had the hands of a man with a hard life, without a piece of little finger. Erend looked at the floor and no longer tried to look proud. He had been trying to compete with a boy.

"They say you are Captain? Of the Vanguard? You can’t make a knife."

“I don’t make blades, I use them. Damn well, they say.” 

"My older brother wants to join you.” 

“Yeah? Why?”

"He says you pay well." Menuf looked at the large double door opening the building, aware that he was to say only what the others around would deem fit. The snow gathered over the house's ledges. "He says you do good things too." 

“We do. Both.”

"Why make a knife then?"

Erend raised his voice because they were being watched, and forges were not so silent least when blacksmiths wanted to overhear. "My sister died. I want to pay my respects the right way.”

Brageld hummed so he would turn. He had been right behind, a new iron piece in his hands and a lesser scowl in his face. “We might not use knives damn well here, but to make one you have to break backs. Our way. That can be melted down, but you’ll botch it. Use this." The broken pieces went into his hand and the new piece, unharmed, into Erend’s. "Show him how we do it, boy."

A blacksmith's knife was a simple knife made of a single piece of metal: the back of the knife was hammered to lengthen the blade, and the long, tapered grip was heated until it glowed bright red. Tweezers and bits of patience made the thin iron bend into a loop to form a handle. If the saying was right, no respectable Oseram had fewer than five or more than fifty, and by the time his sixth one looked like a knife under the long file that hurt fingers, Menuf had been playing with his hammer for days, Brageld had slapped him twice in the back, and a few men had approached him to say some variation of the same thing: make a list of the body parts you can lose. Protect the rest.

The weeks became edgeless, the days fatigued rather than strived to not be like the others, and routine had both something safe and something bleak: hours and hours of waiting to meet with the Ealdormen made him avoid the Council as much as possible. He only went there in the early mornings, and while he waited, he carved to learn about form and shape. The discussions dragged and the complaints concerned but one matter; Avad tried too little to please a bunch of geezers and nibs who spat more than talked, and when they did, you couldn't tell which hole was doing the job by what came out of them. How Ersa had handled them, Erend couldn’t tell. He still tried.

Noons found him dining with Peorth at the tavern where they served the kind of food he knew he’d miss; in Meridian everything was spicy, and no one cooked such broths where the sun scorched. Peorth would whine that he didn't ever take a break; Erend that the only reason he was there, more than a month later, was to play Avad's spy. Vilgund had left with the comitive that had taken Dervahl to justice, ready to return to duty, and he could've done the same. He'd groan and change topics, and the same warning about the passage of time and power would finish their meal for them.

Afternoons were made of fire and sweat, and Erend only left the forge when his muscles cramped, twitching under his skin. When the nights of the second month fell and the forge emptied, and the wind cleared with the blizzards and hailstorms of late dusk, Erend liked the stuffy smoke of a good day's work best. Like any other day, he began by saying goodbye, explaining in that mute language of memories that he couldn't touch her if he lost his fingers, and that mingling the flames with her hair would make him lose his whole hand. When it seemed to work, he took off his blouse and dropped it all over the supple leathers that made him miss his armor sometimes. 

"Damn! It's not that I don't listen, really — the leather keeps the snow off me, but all that sweat on my chest gets cold and makes me sick.” He would end up shivering in front of the fireplace if he didn’t take off his shirt when no one could see him, looking up to where Ersa was, not being able to move until he was very dry and not when the room got too full of sadness.

Brageld raised his hand and kept walking to where he was, unfazed of having startled him. The pale yellow of his hair and beard made the soot on him look encrusted. "Don't wipe off that sweat. The sparks will slide down you before you get burned. Shouldn't do this work like that, but...there's a knack to everything."

"Thanks." Erend checked his hands: the charcoal had gotten deep into the cracks of his skin, and the dark rim around his nails resisted all scrubbing. Brageld waited, so he made sure that his back was in the right position and raised the hammer using his shoulder.

“You're not hitting hard enough. Keep trying to put the stamp back on the same spot to make it deeper, it’ll just bounce ‘round.” Brageld took the hammer and stamp, swatted it just once, hard. “See? You get one chance to make a good impression. Carry me out with the tongs! So you smile! Why, some Carja in mind?”

“Nora. Yeah, Nora.” 

“The southeast savages?”

"Met her in Nora lands. The Embrace. Fire hair, flames for tongue. You'd know it's her as soon as you saw her even knowing just that." He would know. If she appeared before the Council ready to kick their asses, or through the grounds of some other clan. If she sought him out. Aloy was not someone others could avoid whispering about. He would know, and he had heard nothing. 

“She’s a red? Don’t think I saw one in years. Nora. Or reds.”

"Don't think they got anything that’d interest them around here. They like trees...a lot. You’ve never left here?” 

"We too much of a hick for you? We don’t travel much, just a bunch of family men."

“Damn, really? We left here some time ago, but not so long I would expect what isn’t.” 

Brageld sat against the closest table. The tools on it tinkled. "Hm...many stories ‘bout you out there. One doesn’t see the son of the richest and most corrupt Ealdorman in memory learning how to do basic twists together with kiddos every day. Least of all...a Captain?"

"Bet there are. People have that taste for blowing their mouths off and doing little else.” Erend left the hammer on the anvil; it took a second for the metal to peel off the plain of his palm. ”I’m not my father, and if you want to say something, don't make like you don't know who I am or what you mean.”

“You look like him. Bending down till you smear a king's feet with your snout must pay well.” 

“I don’t think as he did, and I bow to no one. I wish I knew half of what you know, and that my family wasn’t the only one around here without a single damn smith that could make this piece justice. I hate him as much as any of you do, if not more.”

"Can you, though? Tis' your blood."

Erend grabbed the anvil and spat on the floor. That old, hoarse voice that no one knew where it came from but everyone heard said that a son carries his father's honor or dishonor. Brageld picked a small file and began scratching his hands. The metal grid hissed against the calluses and sent a fine powder flying. “What you poking ‘round here for? So many questions all the time.”

“Pissing my father is reason enough for her to want to remain here, and I hope he turns in his grave for good while Ersa grows on the trees I will make sure grow in that stupid house. But she kept coming back here after he died. I...want to know why. It’s important to me, but if you were hoping there was more, sorry to disappoint.”

“We talked a few times, Ersa. How did she...?”

“Dervahl killed her.”

Erend let himself become surprised and Brageld performed: he knew more than he did who Dervahl was, who Ersa was and who had killed her, and more than he bargained for. No less could be expected from a man whose name was uttered by many when they spoke of the next Ealdorman and who had too many enemies in the Council. If Ersa had fanned the flames of men ready to give their lives for Dervahl and what he stood for, he had been the one to talk to those no one notices but know injustice. People would speak if you let them speak as if they were forced to fill the silence, and when they spoke he had already convinced them to fight for themselves. Dervahl had been clever enough to appreciate the advantages of a pair of brothers with wit and cunning and too much rage: they had built him an army without making enough questions. The ones Aloy had worked so hard to make. 

Erend treasured both lessons and measured. Brageld was not the kind of man to speak in excess. Erend struck the burning iron in front of his feet before shrugging it off, the way they were lying to each other, and said, "But you knew."

“You think we helped? As...revenge?”

“I don't. But I want to know why the man sought and hated by every clan had dozens of hangers-on in Pitchcliff. Why he almost blew up Meridian with more blaze this forge will ever use. He wasn’t hiding, I just needed to walk to get there when even the kids here know his face. So yeah, I have questions."

"What will you do? Whine to that king of yours?"

“If I see fit. What goes between Meridian and The Claim now goes through me.” 

Brageld pulled a tin of chewing tobacco out of his breastplate and made a small ball with his fingers, choosing, as he kept trying to do when they talked, if this eyebrow or that word was that of a friend or a foe. "What you all did changed things, but the Council doesn't want them to change. The raids made apprentices take arms, die, forges emptied when they began killing those who dared breathe. I know you thought I'm too young when we met. I am. It's the same everywhere, there are not enough men."

"One of my men, Vilgund, was a leatherworker, but he can do almost anything. He joined the mercenaries Ersa and I traveled with because at some point he needed shards and who was buying shoes then, right? He has a choice, but most Vanguardsmen are soldiers."

"So you do know why the Council only shows its teeth. It's your king who lays down the shards, isn't it? Those fools on those big chairs think you'll pay taxes if they scream louder, but what man pays because they talk or cloth this or that way? You're not the bright spark that pays taxes here and there, you?" Erend raised a brow. Brageld cackled. He sighed. “We stayed, we pay the taxes those who left don’t pay, the dead's, and ours, and they keep whatever they get anyway. Tough times."

"Right, but the Council is full of bastards, and there are also types of bastards...still don't know who uses all that and why."

"My woman made dinner for me and some nice men you should meet. Ale brewed by myself. Put down that hammer and come along..._Captain_.” Brageld stood, chewing and chewing, laughing at his own joke. Erend looked at the piece of steel waiting for him to finish shaping it on the anvil, not wanting to give in too easily. "About that steel plate you want to make...heard your king misses you too much? I found a good piece, won't be too hard for you to shape it. We'll help if you let us."

A steel disk had to be sturdy, and it had meant a lot of areas to improve on. Erend nodded: with the right help, carrying Ersa in his waist would make sure she kept setting him straight.

* * *

  
  
"You allowed me to!"

"You took too long!" 

"We serve you, and fire and spit, with great pride! But the Vanguard is of itself. If you do this, you'll destroy it."

Avad sat on his throne and stood up again. "What will happen if you are not chosen? Did you think it was mere caprice that I named you Captain? The Vanguard is the only true force standing between Meridian and Sunfall, I must have a right hand that will not betray me!”

"If I learned a thing from Ersa is that a man who risks his life for others belongs to who they respect. Don’t want to believe that? Then do it, don’t trust them, because ruling on the backs of those men won't get anyone a good night's sleep. I know you're king, but they're the ones wielding the hammer, not just me, and you gave this right to us when the Vanguard was founded!"

“I think the Captain is right, Your Highness.” Marad knew the shades of his voice: that one made Avad sigh when Marad strode in from the corners. An external consciousness, always watchful of the proper so that its power would be true and inconspicuous. “Perhaps it would be wise to let things unravel before a hasty decision is made. You said you needed help, Captain?” 

Erend felt the heat creeping across his face. It was one thing to smooth others' problems. Asking those others to solve yours hadn't stopped feeling like a defeat yet. “Yeah. I need help. With...my speech." Avad and Marad glanced at each other as though he had asked them to wrap him up in a red robe and let him scream his head off to the sun until his nose crinkled and reached the ground. “So...the stakes are high, right? Asking for help from the two most...articulate men in the world...might help?”

Avad sat again and made a flick with his hand to say “Well? Go on”. Erend shuffled his feet and coughed — when he said the same thing for the fifth time, the night was dense and the training grounds shook with whispers and low murmurs from dozens of grumpy men. Avad sat not in a lush throne but in the simplest chair he had ever sat in, and a dense cloak of smoke coming out of the evenly spaced torches gave the gathering the semblance of all bannable things. Like one that gave a guard the power to tell its master what it thought.

Erend raised his hands to make silence. “When we stood against the Mad Sun-King we had no such resources as we have now; we left our homes and our families, and stepped where no Oseram had stood in decades. And it was this, the Vanguard, that made _our_ city as it is today." 

At least half the men turned to look at Avad. Avad nodded, raised his hands, and applauded. The cheers and clapping that followed were just a small flame struggling under a snowdrift. Erend pointed north. "Up and down they surround us: Meridian, who calls us forge-dirt and forgets, sometimes, not what we did, but what we do.” Most men nodded ruefully, the rest shrugged. “Sunfall, to the west, hopes we will falter." 

Dorgeld was in the first line coated in gold like the merchants who swarmed the markets and swung on the fine line between costly and swindling. Erend gestured in his direction without pointing, and all who were there understood. "Perhaps you want to listen to those who say the Vanguard has been too long forgetting where we come from. Those of you who think Ersa made me Captain because she was my sister: raise your hands and say you really think she would do that!"

There were hands that had not been raised stirring his guts, ideas dripping like green, bright blaze out of ears and noses from faces he could not distinguish. Whispers that would remain unsaid in every man. Erend paced back and forth across the stage, hearing the wood creak, again and again, giving more time than necessary for someone to finally say what everyone thought. No hand was raised. Dorgeld and his flock snorted when some urged him to keep going.

"I haven't been a good Captain." 

"You sucked!"

“Yeah! Where were you!” 

His throat was dry, his palms sweaty. Erend opened his legs and stood with his palms up because it'd say what he needed them to believe. “Dervahl killed Ersa. I didn't avenge her because she’s my sister, but that was a reason. I didn't find Dervahl because I was once under his command and I regret it, but it was a reason. I left to understand why and who allowed Dervahl to run in plain sight for two long years when the Council kept being sure he was dead! We were sure, they said when I got there pulling him from the neck! No one offered to investigate, and my words left no mark because they only wanted to talk of...taxes."

"You have something to share then?" Dorgeld stood and his paunch and the years tightened the leather breastplate on his chest. He had the voice of all men who live long enough to drink too much without becoming drunks, and the kind of stories and scars that made others whisper about whether it was luck or skill. Avad had been waiting with pursed lips and apologies they agreed not to say before sharing the bad news: Dorgeld had been sitting in Ersa's office, the one Erend had planned on not using, for weeks. He had rallied enough men to vote. "Or you spent three months away learning how to stand and make yourself not look like a stumbling keg?"

"We all know you can't help but look like one, but maybe pick a different shade of leather for next time?" Peorth took a step towards Dorgeld and spat on the floor. The laughter stretched, some men pushed other men. Erend couldn’t see but the mouths past the first rows, or who and why they were laughing. Peorth muttered when Erend asked him, in his silence, not to interfere. 

Erend raised his hands. They still made silence. "I found I don't know why Ersa wanted me to be Captain, but I know why she didn't want some people to be! Meridian needs us and we serve it, but we are not Meridian. Some say it's the solution, to suck up to those cranks in the Claim, I say they do nothing but wring out your families and refuse to let you help without robbing you half! I know what we are not, but you ask: who are we? I say: let people whisper about the merits of our past. About whether our steel has become indulgent, if the Sun-King support makes us arrogant, and whether we have a right to be here or not. I don't know why Ersa wanted me to be Captain because I learned I can't do it by myself. I haven’t drunk in three months, not a drop, but you all know. I’ll need help. I know many here wish to reconnect with your clans. Many worry about the future. I do too. I worry too. Help me, because I'll help you.”

He moved forward, let the quiet heighten his pause: one heartbeat, two heartbeats, ten, fifteen, rumbling, pounding from the world's core into his veins as all eyes looked at him, deciding if he was to be believed. If he had changed, if he was better. “And if you don’t, don’t let people whisper that the Vanguard was sold for a few lousy pieces of gold, whether they come from the Sun Palace or the Council. The Vanguard owes nothing but to honor, and we are not here to pander to anyone!” 

When Menuf ran to where he was, all teeth slanted and a wide smile, his arms tucked into some yellow and white striped uniform that was too large, the tally was done. Erend grabbed his hammer and let Menuf beat him with three quick, easy-to-dodge stabs. He dropped to the floor with his tongue out and laughed: Menuf played the embarrassed lad he had once been, Peorth ran to where they were, preparing to fall on him and tease the other and spar. Some men were about to pick him up from the ground, ready to celebrate. The night was clear, packed with stars. It was not Ersa, nor Avad.

The Vanguard had made him its Captain. 

* * *

"Not exactly a royal barge, is it? Oh well. Defectors can’t be choosers. Let’s get aboard, shall we?" 

Vanasha pointed to the barge and hopped in without asking if she should expect her to hop in too. Aloy did. The barge made smooth waves on the lake, extinguishing the acute heating within her ribcage the more and more water flowed and the Project Zero Dawn Facility lagged behind.

"You've done a good thing, maybe even ended a war." Vanasha's hips made a wobble and a flutter even there, on that unstable plane. Aloy drowned out the uncertainty that had made Vanasha assure her that no better chances had been wasted..

Itamen would still seek for the danger that would catch up with him. Nasadi cooed him with inaudible love and dipped her fingers in the water, raising them to let the drops glow and fall on a small hand of chubby fingers. 

"Maybe, but my war just keeps going," Aloy said

"The Sun-King must be waiting for us already. Let us hope nothing terrible will come of our audacity." 

"Avad? At Brightmarket? Isn’t that...risky?" 

Vanasha nibbled her lip. In a second the face became a playful, carefree laugh. "Let’s hope his guard is as good as he thinks it is." 

Dirt. Cuts. Little hairs flying all around her helmet: a Rockbreaker, some Eclipse and their corrupt machines, a Thunderjaw, and a lot of hair and sweat floating and falling around Vanasha's helmet. She couldn't look any different. 

Vanasha raised one eyebrow. "Do you have a problem with the Vanguard, Little Huntress? Such a sigh."

"Why would I?" 

"There is always trouble where there are men in armor. The question is... what kind." Vanasha smiled and the trap set itself, slipping from her teeth.

Aloy played around with the chances she never had because most people in armor didn’t look like they’d know every secret to every heartache. "Is that why you don't seem too pleased to have Uthid back?" 

"To have him back?"

"You could be mourning his passing now. He could have chosen to stay behind?" 

"And I...would...not want him to?" She had fallen knowing that Vanasha was waiting for her to fall: her teeth were so many and so white the sun glistened on them. "Do you miss someone, Little Huntress?"

"Everyone misses someone." 

Vanasha bowed like a reed. Her whisper was honeyed. Aloy held back the urge to scratch her cheeks. "Oh, so another girl talk. How long have you been...not missing them?"

"You won't let it slide?" Vanasha shook her head from side to side with delight. Aloy accepted the risks. “Maybe...months?"

"How many months?"

“How would — Five? I'm not sure." The brown stains on her white blouse were becoming too many. It made no sense, suddenly, for one who spent all day in a forge to wear such light-colored clothes. She shouldn’t have bought it.

Vanasha stifled a laugh when Aloy wet his thumb and rubbed. What had been a brown spot became a blot. "Who are they? A man? Woman? A lover?" 

Six and twelve days had passed, and as Aloy added that day to the list of days, the clock and date in the right corner of her Focus mocked her. Aloy crossed her arms across her chest and discreetly kicked one of the buckles in front of her foot. She didn't need Oseram barges to think about Erend. To remember that he had legs and that as long as he had them, they could’ve met anywhere.

“He was in a rough spot...we helped each other for a few days. I think I'm...worried.”

“Sometimes caring for someone is a form of love. Sometimes that care is already a new love beginning." Vanasha searched for a reaction while her lips giggled, and every part of her face wanted to be in tune and could not help but be out of tune.

"I don't have time for that."

"Love doesn't wait, Little Huntress, it just comes, but maybe you're right. You must care a lot about this man of yours. For someone with such a lethal spear, you're...refreshingly naive, Aloy.”

Aloy fiddled with her right sleeve. There, too, everything was a mess. “He’s just a friend.” 

When the ropes locked the barge to the docks, Aloy knew exactly how long she would have to swim if she jumped into the lake and fled, and how many exits there were in the opposite direction. She counted silhouettes with the same precision: Avad's crown shone in the sun; at his side, red feathers swayed rhythmically. Not a single hammer swung behind any back.

Itamen ran to Avad, Avad was in a hurry, and everyone was in a hurry because the sky and the location were wide open, the chances of an unforeseen attack too high. She wasn't, and she was supposed to be because the answers were just beyond, right ahead, but the sun and the warmth were calm. The dock had been empty for some time: Aloy climbed the steps made of wood and walked under Brightmarket’s gate, the lake waving behind her back, and the water shimmered on the stones and the sunlight hit the walls painted in green. 

She tripped. She tripped when she slid down slopes sometimes, and when she walked, and sometimes she walked and ran for days. But she had never tripped in front of him. "Erend?"

Erend's head and shoulder peeked out: the purple block bearing his name was hiding inside of one of the arched passages crossing the gate from side to side. He pulled his helmet off, put it back on, took it off again and tossed his hair about. “Hey." 

He was leaner, or taller, or both, and from that new height he looked at her up and down, stopping at the leather, the buckles in that armor that made her another one of his tribe at first glance. Aloy rubbed her elbow, her wrist, and everywhere she felt dust. 

“Prety armor for a pretty girl?"

"It _ does _slow me down, but...came in handy. " She patted the steel and didn’t remember liking it that much, how he smiled. The corridor was dark and cold: no one could be seen beyond where it ended, neither in the other arched passage behind her back nor in the other. Aloy leaned in the opposite wall a bit to his right and Erend moved so they would face the other. "Had to fight an angry guy up there. How do you stand the heat in Meridian? Your armor is heavier than mine, we were in the boat and the su—” 

Erend waited. She wished he hadn't, that he had babbled nonsense because he did sometimes, that he hadn’t waited since she never did. 

“I don't handle it, it handles me, but let's not go into detail, trust me. Looks...good on you, by the way.” 

Only the left side of his face had creased, as when he didn't know whether to say what he wanted to say. When he wanted to say something without being sure how. A smile tugged his lips with the right slight so you assumed everything you didn’t want to be known was known. 

"Where are your men? Are you alone again?" 

"We must have gotten better if you haven't spotted us yet. We're where we should be, don't worry.” Erend tossed his helmet in his hands, finding nowhere to put it in the nothing around them. “So…how have you been? It's been..."

“Fine. It's good. To see you."

"Sure? Looks like...you didn't expect it?”

"Well, I didn’t, just...someone said not to forget you while I went around changing the world. Makes it easier, I guess, seeing you’re still the same.”

“Yeah, imagine I no longer had a beard and you were misremembering _ this _face, right?” He patted his cheek and she wanted to smile. He could have shaved off all the hair on his head and enough time would have passed so that nothing would seem out of place. She couldn’t know. Erend let his grin slowly fade away. “So...you did then? Remember."

"You said it.” Aloy flashed a small grin. "I promised nothing."

"My version wouldn't agree, but I'll settle for those two minutes someone promised me. How about...a drink? I know just the place."

“A drink?”

"They sell fruity things in taverns too, I found out recently, after you drank my last brew. I haven't had any...since..." Erend slipped a hand under an elbow and nibbled his thumb. He chuckled. "You should see the face they make in the Lodge when I ask for watermelon juice. Heard a lot about you there too? About your hunts? Woman of the hour every day.”

"Doubt they'll do me justice." 

“That’s what I kept saying until they got tired of hearing the same old thing. Bought at least four different types of ropes, but my friend never visited me, so...nothing new to tell."

The wince lost, went down her legs, arched her feet. "We should stay here." 

His hands went limp. She sat down before he changed his mind. Erend bent over and dropped next to her, agreeing for the sake of it. She made a thing: come a little closer, close enough to give him a push, a quick smile to say it didn’t have to be so serious. He gripped her elbow to say it was, let go only when it was about to become too open a claim. 

"I visited. You took a long time to go back to Meridian. Did you find it? What you were searching for...in the Claim?"

He looked and there was nothing to look at but her eyes, and nothing else that interested him but her. "Some things. Missed others.” The space between his eyes shrank. Erend paused, discarding words. “I’m glad you’re in one piece. With everything I heard..."

He told her about the bleak landscape and the gray sky fed by columns of black smoke that were nothing like his memories. He took his belt off and showed her the polished metal plate he had made, and she admired it because the surface reflected how he was watching her touch the shiny steel, and there was a pride there that she had never seen before. 

He told her about the many men willing to challenge the Council and how his little office in the training camps was always full of Vanguardsmen asking him about the strangest things. As if they really trusted him. There was in his voice something old and something young, and it struck Aloy anew, how easy it was for them to be so close together, rubbing elbows and forearms against one another.

”You've always been good with people. Everyone listens when you talk.”

"It's easy when common sense is in short supply. But you know that.” Erend grinned and let his hand hang from his knee. 

She looked and felt herself still and quake: his hand now hovered above her hand, and she kept watching as he caressed her knuckles, just watching. 

"I should go, I—” Aloy counted the times he inhaled and exhaled. 

"Busy?" 

She counted and counted and her bag was too full of reasons: those who were not breathing awaited. The Eclipse wouldn't, nor their plans, and neither he nor she should be there. She nodded. They got up, dusting themselves off, two old and forgotten things working again, trying to remember how to function. 

"Well...It’s been good to see you too. Stay safe and all that." 

He turned and she didn't, and when he didn't, she stepped forward. The excuse was that the sun was high: the light made a sharp, long triangle at the farthest corner where the passage ended. An imaginary limit that made everything that happened in the dark happen because it could. Because no one could see them, no one would see them as long as they did not let the light bathe them.

She grabbed his wrist. They yanked. "I can't pretend I only want to talk when you're so eager to leave.” She pulled on the buckles, on his little finger. Erend dipped his chin. "Fire and spit, Aloy, wh—”

“Then don’t.” 

He pulled, sure that their paths would never cross again; Aloy gave in: maybe they wouldn't. They stumbled away from the light. Inside her mouth was the rumbling of a kiss she never knew was owed because during those days he had not had the courage to take off his gloves, throw them on the floor and her against the wall.

If comforts were bad, Erend was the worst of all: he left the tracks she would have wanted to follow between her neck and clavicles; she made his helmet fall to the ground. A hoist and a hop made him dig a hole to under her shirt. She nodded when he asked if he could slide his hands through it, glide them over her. Erend reached into her hair and pulled her ear back to his mouth. 

He whispered: "One night”, and that white, dirty shirt under her Sparkworker’s overalls was too flimsy to be an excuse to say no. A thumb chafed the curve of her breast because his hand was too big and her trunk was too small. When she feared, he grabbed her hand and tucked it under his own. No one was there, and if there was, he didn't let her have another look. "I have the where. Just say yes." 

Fingertips, his and hers, softly all over her stomach, her chest. Erend caught her nipple, and somehow ten became twenty: twenty fingers stroking her waist, his chin, feeling his hands exploring, four palms persuading as she pulled him deeper into the dark.

“You never fail to disappoint me. I didn't mean _ this _when I said to handle any unfinished business before entering the Zero Dawn Project Facility." 

She hadn't breathed yet. She breathed and breathing expanded the rage: she tried to dress him, use his arms and chest to hide from the darts piercing. It didn't work. Kissing him didn't make her want to kiss him less but more, and that awkward posture that twisted her bones could work one night, at least half. One more minute. Her knees bent. She wouldn't hold on unless she moved.

“I have to go.”

"No. No. You said — you nodded. I saw you. I saw you." Between each negotiation was a kiss, a sloppy, despairing kiss, and she fell into each because Erend kissed to say "You wouldn't kiss me like this if you didn't want this", and she couldn't want it but did.

He opened his eyes to her fists pushing him away. The Focus stuck out between her fingers. He stuck both into his cheek. “Is that voice? The bastard that spoke to you when you went for Olin? Aloy?"

"I...don't have time for this. I have more important things to do.” 

“What is this about, another of those dangerous things you need to do? We — we’ve been through this before, right? You don't have to do this alone."

"And then what?" He stood there, his hands on the wall, keeping the very gap between his arms she had used and was now empty intact. “What will we do? Sleep? Do this...all night? And then? I'll tell you everything and nothing will change. I'll go, only to be late.”

"Yeah, I'm sure everything will screw up if you just sleep with me and not between some rocks tonight. But I guess there's no point if after all we...you don't trust me.”

"I trust you."

“Then tell me! There’s no one here but you and me so...tell me. What did it say?” 

“You don't know everything, but I've told you more than enough. More than anyone else. This isn't about you and me."

“Yeah? And how does helping Avad fit into...whatever it is you're doing? Didn't that take up your time? You won't stop to help the next poor bastard you come across? Yeah, I thought so.” 

Staying could be for fear of what she might find under Sunfall, and so staying with him would cost her integrity. Faltering when Rost's murderer was unharmed was costing her dignity, and it would be shameless to say, despite it all, that he —and not Elisabet, or Rost, or herself, or any of the hundred things dragging her down— was the first thing she thought about every morning. But saying just one word would make her say all the others because, in the end, she would leave.

Voices escaped over the edges, shouts bounced and echoed when they came close. "You saw the Corruptors! You know what the Eclipse are doing! What I need to do is more important than what I want. You know that."

"No, I don’t know, and I don’t think you know because I would do both, save the damn world and want what I want!"

"Oh, yes, I guess it's easy when you don't have to do it!" 

"Fire and spit, some sarcasm to see it through, nice one.” 

The push was a lot softer than the pull. He could have waited until her fear to touch his hair became less to walk away. Until the pressure of his arms around her felt a little more unavoidable. He could’ve shaken his head as she did then, kissed her, and not accept a single word of what she had said. Aloy ran.

"Across that river is the place I've been looking for since I left the Embrace! Helis is alive and unharmed and Rost is still dead! You have, but I haven’t done anything! I can’t stop. Not for this...not yet.”

Erend turned. She hoped. He took her face in his hands. She couldn’t say if he was looking at her mouth because he wanted it or if he couldn't face her stare. “Is it dangerous? That place?”

“I...don’t know. Probably? Erend..."

The strand of hair she never noticed on her forehead moved under his thumb. Her wrists dangled next to her hips; Erend was still holding his mouth to her forehead. She waited, but he smiled as if excuses were hard to make, as if he could only let his hands dangle too, and let the weight of their goodbye drown them. She might have stayed for as long as she could bear it, that shame, and he hadn’t tried. He hadn't tried. Aloy felt the edges of the Focus against her nails.

"What were you expecting? That you would...and I would drop everything? You can't just show up and make everything harder just because you want to!"

“Fire and spit, right? What was I expecting...you’re still so much better than me. Don't do anything stupid and get yourself killed without making it. You owe yourself that much.”

The sun blinded. A long shadow coming out from under her feet reached his boots, then the empty place where they had been. The mellow evening sun and the palm trees and red houses of Brightmarket blinded her, and her body was covered with light. When Erend turned, both had left her with the same giant steps that made loud noises. Both had chosen the worst possible day to make her carry a pain she couldn't afford: the days she was sure just one more scratch, one more wrench would give her all the answers. The days when she said to herself that Elisabet hadn't stopped for love, friendship, that she had rushed against time sacrificing everything. That her sacrifice had paid off. The corridors were dark, and the green walls reflected the sunlight as if sound could be seen, tingling and waving.

“I won’t tolerate whining. Is that clear?” 

“You’ll tolerate what I give you, Sylens. I didn’t ask you along for the ride.” 

Aloy looked back one last time. It was so black under those arches one could really say there had never been anything there.

* * *

When Korduf and Vilgund saw him run and catch up with the group of men following Avad's pace, they looked at him and said, "What are you doing here?", and Erend only said: "She began with a goodbye.” 

When they crossed the bridge and the gate and feet went in all kinds of ways, he made a gesture that could have been anything and no one stopped him because they weren't expecting him to fail again. No one stopped him when the tavern brought him the smell of sweat and ale, nor when he sat. He was a dried-up body sitting on a stool at that same old bar. 

He hated the little jumps her ass made when she walked, how she had turned around leaning her chest slightly, aware that his eyes had been caught in the swell of her half-bare breasts. He disliked the soft skin on her hands that spoke of unshared skills and the silent claim of her presence: that at the end of the day, and most days, she would hug him. That they would laugh, and she would make him, if not happy, then a little less lonely. That she would be there, and that Aloy would not.

"How long till you're done?" 

“In your house, like in the old days? It's been months."

The pretty face laughed, and it wasn't as beautiful, and no face could be. A pair of skilled hands brought a pitcher to a keg. The foam wobbled as the metal slid across the bar’s wood’s grain to where he was and spilled. He was not expecting her to want to see him. She didn't have to stay, tell him about the things she had never told him. 

But Aloy said she didn't have time, that there were more important things, and he hadn't said the same when Ersa died. He had grabbed hold of her, and it was her coughing and struggling with a bottle straight over her mouth that made him smile and not drink in those longs months when missing her hurt more, sometimes, than missing someone he knew wouldn't come back. It was her voice that had started to play in his head from time to time, saying it wasn't his fault when everything else said it was. It was she who had made him believe he could shoulder his share of the blame and use it to be better, to be a good captain, a good man. The night before he had polished his armor, recounting all the good things he had achieved because Aloy's voice was often in his head, telling him that carrying more pain would not help and that he already had too much.

He had believed her.

She hadn't said she wanted to stay. She hadn't said she needed him, not even as a friend. She hadn't said it even if she had to leave, and she hadn't once stopped him as if she wanted him to stop. The kisses stumbled, she pulled at him listlessly, and when everything was difficult she didn't want him there. She had said what he would never say, because it wasn't needed, saying he was worthless for her time, not doing what he had done because it was unacceptable. She could've just said "I can't" but said "I wouldn't."

Everyone was able to let go of the things they wanted for the things they had to and he couldn’t. He couldn’t, because there, in that old bar when he could let go of the pain, he couldn’t quite gulp down the brew that would fog her waist, the slightly tanned skin with more freckles he never knew he’d love. The fresh bits of memory he had lost and couldn’t lose again. Her memory made the foam spill and grow and drip and he had believed her, and he would never be enough. 

He would never be enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So the conversation with Kudiv actually happens in the game and I've always thought it's interesting that Aloy reaches the conclusion that love would restrict her.
> 
> Thanks for reading :)


	10. Before the Battle

It had no arms. Perhaps small metal ones came out from the bowels to hold as the baby grew. Maybe it filled with the liquid that came out of mothers' bellies when they gave birth and she had floated in there, alone, for months. Aloy hugged herself tighter, pulling her feet from the purple lights cast on the floor. The log only said "BIRTHING 3021-AP-04". 

She didn’t have birthdays because she didn't have a mother to thank for her life or a grave to visit. Once a year, when winter loomed and the fire warmed, Rost would say, "Another year has passed” with the succinctness the tribe demanded of outcasts and that she had learned, as so many things, not to regard as a lack of affection. 

He never stared openly to hide his intentions from others; if they knew them, they could use them against you. Those days he stared. She would extend her left arm until something creaked and he would measure it, bring her right leg forth and he would gauge how much it had stretched. He sighed and she would slowly yawn and nod. When at least nineteen winters had passed she had no mother but she had a grave, and she didn’t know how she would gain years because buried inside the earth was Rost. 

The servitors had a metal frame and a smiling, ingratiating hologram. GAIA spoke and butterflies fluttered and you could reach out and pat her cheek. The machine that had made her had no name, neither was it called "Mother" or "Father". The datapoint only said “CHAMBER B1-001”.

They made machines out of light and buildings as tall as the sky but they hadn't bothered to give it a voice, not so much as a few lines, not so much as an old, too-bright hologram like the ones she had seen in Hollow Hall. There were doodles everywhere, but not even those that came before had doodled a mother over the domed surface of the chamber. Fake mothers were as crude as cauldrons and the machines constantly repaired and manufactured in them. 

Aloy wavered before putting the Focus down, but all that was there was GAIA saying: "Then I have failed...and life will end.” Asking to hear a voice that wasn’t hers. Sylens would speak another variation of: "You have a destiny to fulfill, stop pitying yourself and keep moving, you are late!” He would be right, and she wanted him not to be only for a little while until she gathered her thoughts. 

The Focuses she had taken clanked inside her bag when she stood to leave the chamber behind. She had picked them one by one, drifting through the booths where every chair and every hologram of Samina was repeated, struggling to understand GAIA’s words, hearing a recount of what DNA was and how the Old Ones used it in the voice of Sylens. As though he too had the need too, sometimes, to fill the silence, rambling and rambling the one moment she didn’t want to share with him. He knew all of her secrets, all of her pains. 

Aloy made an effort and her steps were again firm and she strolled around the facility: behind the clear, chilled walls shiny cribs waited to swing preserved by the tasteless and odorless air that chased her through every wreck, sheltered from the little one’s traces by a wall with no door. 

The doodles of suns and clouds and all the things she had smelled, touched and tasted since she was a child escorted her as she walked down the corridor of Cradle-9. They had been planned, copied from someone else, used, left to fend by themselves. She imagined them walking the same corridor, young men and women as her, opening the same door and being washed by the same blue light — trailing yet another path of the sacrificed. She couldn’t say how many she had crossed by then. 

And then those who had loathed her fell to the ground and whined her name. Aloy had her eyes on the void where there were no heads anymore, only the heat of the hundreds of crackling candles scattered in the cave. Their faces praised, adored, their hands rose in the air demanding. Demanding that she took on another assigned role born out of their ignorance, that she played another lie. No one had held her when she was born, and those who did when she was left outside the Cradle, crying — they had called her a curse.

“No! No! Stop this! Up! First you shun me, now this? I will not be worshipped! I am not your Anointed! I don’t belong to you! There’s a whole world beyond your borders! Whole tribes of people just as good as you!” 

They turned to each other, distraught, a few touching fervently where she had wrapped her hand to shake them, raise them to their feet.

She did not want to shake them because they had shunned her. She wanted to shake them so that she could feel her whole body moving, responding, so that her muscles trembled to fight not with them but with the world. A world where each new step and each new thing only bruised her. A world made of blurry faces flickering in purple light wanting to use her because she was just another part of the system. Keys had no tomorrow, no yesterday. Her time was no longer hers. 

She could not belong to project Zero Dawn and the Nora too: when she heard herself say, "It's a world worth fighting for" every leaf, tree and river rang through the doubts and she wanted to find all the missing pieces and explore the unexplored and rise. As if being born to repair GAIA had been her wish forever. There was no more conflict for there was no mother, only void to fill, and from the void emerged a strong will. 

When she heard herself say "Meridian" and Teersa made the people move until a hallway was left, something gnawed and dared pound on her chest for an instant. They wanted her to raise her chin and walk that hallway because she had to leave their sacred mountain as she had entered it: alone.

But then Varl waited for her at the end of the survivors' trail. A voice, faint, wondered. Perhaps Varl would see her as he did. She imagined him breaking through that door ready to spear that unnamed chamber only because it had made her frown. The thought amused her, and she smiled grimly. Erend would wipe the sweat off his forehead and freeze and ask, "You didn't want me to smash it?” but only once it was too late.

She would tell him clearly that there were limits she could not cross. She would say, from the beginning, "I have to find a Master Override, I can't stay.” Perhaps she would be upfront because Erend knew how to look at her in that way that made her say things. "I will never be able to stay.” Aloy waited and waited, hoping that having been frank from the very beginning would make him hurt less and accept more, but Erend didn’t answer. He only stood there next to the chamber and all the dreams that once existed. Dreams of going through that door as high as a mountain and finding rest and not more weight. She needed to leave them behind. Aloy walked and Varl pretended that he hadn't been waiting for her, that they had just met by chance.

“Aloy...I don’t know what to say,” Varl said.

“Say that you’ll see at Meridian.”

“Of course. That much is simple. But the rest…”

“Complicated. I know. Maybe if I took into the heart of the mountain…”

Varl shouted "No!" as if she had asked him to stick his hand down his throat and tear out the most valuable part of himself. She was something to be worshipped without risk, to be received, but never to be given something in return because the goddesses has chosen her, not anyone else. Varl offered excuses and Aloy nodded and repeated the deal so that it didn't seem like she was looking for a friend. She was providing what she owed just like CYAN was supposed to teach the Banuk. Just as Elisabet wanted to teach the world with Apollo. No one had forced her to ask. She felt defeated. She should have never invited him in. 

She should have never asked what she knew would not happen. It needed not to, just as it was necessary for GAIA to throw her into a tribe that would make her need no one, a tribe that worshipped mothers knowing she would never have one. She had to know. She knew they would feed her, bring her to adulthood. She had to know and had chosen to make her not need anyone or anything. She had been made to.

Pondering long and hard as others did about who she was wasn’t a thing she missed because she never was meant to have it, or choosing what life she wanted to live when she turned old enough. Whether to be a Brave or not, or whether to take care of little ones, make clothes, build houses - nothing mattered because it didn't matter if she wanted to walk the world alone, if she wanted to be like Elizabeth and sacrifice everything for that world full of good people she couldn't ignore. She would have wanted it because it was the right thing to do, but the voice and face she had borrowed were from someone more important than herself.

She could be called Elisabet Sobeck and it didn’t matter. GAIA could expect from her what she hadn’t done and it didn’t matter. She would do it, and it wouldn’t end after she defeated HADES. It would never end, and even if she wanted it, it weighed. Her legs felt heavy. They were no longer hers, but of everything. 

The muttering grew silent when her steps, determined steps, echoed through the cave, and the wind became more and more intense and the light clearer and more cold. A simple thin, worn-out cloth guarded the entrance to the mountain, and behind it, the pure white of the snow-covered the remains of bones and metal from the massacre. Helis would not have attacked the tribe if she had not been born in Cradle-9. Vala and the rest would not have died if she had not been born a replacement for Elisabet Sobeck. Rost would be alive.

Her burdens had been chosen for her and it didn't matter whether she was guilty or not, whether she had done something to deserve it or not. The bodies dragged behind her anyway.

Aloy stretched out her hand and the wind rushed in between her fingers, invisible, swaying. She was the lost piece of the riddle. Every choice she made would either save the world or not. She looked to the sky and hoped Rost could hear, somehow, that she had found a purpose. Tiny shreds of other lives she might have wanted twisted as she made her way out: between her and what she should feel, there was now a gap. 

The wind was invisible except when it stirred leaves and shook branches, when it sounded, cruising through the valley. What was left behind of who she was before GAIA’s plea was like the wind except for one thing: Erend was the only thing she could move and he was suddenly so far away, part of another time and place. 

* * *

He thought the same thing he always thought when he passed by the staircase where they had said goodbye months ago, when he descended the narrow stairs Aloy had walked down, when he twisted his feet to get through the first door he had crossed in Meridian.

There were marks of the fight on the stone walls, and the smell was the same; that wet, closed-off stench of the canals making the water flow imperturbable until supplying the whole palace. It was the same bridge where he had seen -like never before- the leader in Ersa next to Avad before they changed the course of history. The same old beams that had become an infiltration point two years later because the Captain of the Vanguard was not looking: he had become the same kind of man as his sister's murderer.

Erend sat down in the same place he always sat, the central beam on the middle level, the one between the sounding water below and the rattling planks on the upper level whenever a cart passed carrying tons of food into the palace. His visits to the tunnels had begun as a warning little voice: looking at the same rocks and arches over and over again was an attempt to find more reasons to blame himself. Like all things that should not become one, it had become a habit to mourn and curse at the sunset for dying too while resting against those wooden pillars.

The long steel-covered rectangle that would usually protect his legs wasn’t so easy to move on a horizontal plane. He pulled it again, mumbling when the length and angle made it impossible to cover her calves and feet: Aloy was suddenly an intangible bag of bones and memories lying her head on his thigh. She left just enough time to hunt or gather the few things she ate, but his worry melted as he grabbed and stroked the shell of her ear and she complained about the tickles. Her face was tanned, full of small freckles and a patina of dry, red skin on each cheek. 

Ersa would bend over and laugh just to his right the times he found he wasn't that alone on that lonely bridge, making fun of him for uselessly patting the old leather when there was nothing to pat and looking down and smiling like an idiot guarding a treasure as if Aloy was really there. Of all his regrets, never being able to look Ersa and say “See? This is the kind of woman I want for myself, so stop worrying" was one of the worst. Ersa would have shaken her head, but she would also have understood that there was no choice but to take reciprocity off the list of things he should want.

The answer took a while to brew. At first, it looked like getting lost where those who weren't thirsty drank. The liquid wouldn't go down his throat one night: he was a fraud with a hunch, a hunch that grew and snarled, a hunch that whispered that he had stopped feeling like a fraud. At least not all the time, and if he didn't drink.

Aloy kept reminding him of how to move every time he moved, how to hunt whenever he grabbed a hammer. So he changed the drills, encouraged the use of different weapons and techniques. Quiet ones. The Vanguard had begun looking like groups on his mind, parts with advantages and disadvantages that complemented each other. Optimizing became rewarding. 

Suddenly, some of his men would come to his office to chat. He would put his hands on the table and listen carefully when they told him what they liked doing the most, what they were insecure about, discuss this or that technique. His own voice -different but reminiscent of Ersa's- was like a chair that became more comfortable the more you used it. 

Who would follow his lead if he hid behind Scrappersap? How could he ask his men to come clean when he didn't. So he stopped. He had searched for other arms -whoever's- because he had been scared of being alone when the darkness hit. So he never searched for them again. 

Dervahl had turned his grief into hate, his witts into a weapon, his sister into a sacrifice. He hadn't stopped bothering Ersa while his wife waited for him. One day his wife was taken away by Jiran. Maybe he had pestered Ersa that day too. Maybe he hated her because he hated himself. He couldn't be the same kind of man as his sister's murderer. Aloy couldn't become Ersa, he couldn't become -really become- the man that had let his sister die. Learning to be if not happy, at least content, was something he had to do alone.

* * *

The entrance was made of light. Aloy's left thigh screamed when she took the last step; the top hadn't looked so high from the ground. Everything else vanished: the hole that was letting the orange-tinged light inside the mountain felt like the one she had on her stomach. She hadn't found about Apollo's destruction then. Or how the Alphas were suffocated. GAIA Prime was a tomb. 

Another tomb.

"Guys - you know me. I'm not good at endings. At letting things end. So let's not." Elisabet’s hologram showed her wearing a Shield Weaver armor. She was letting the Alphas know that she had chosen to die. She was dead. She had sacrificed herself. 

That type of commitment was familiar: it was the will Rost had to do good, no matter the consequences. The stubbornness she had cultivated her whole life. Charles Ronson's voice recording modulated her feelings, giving them a voice.

_All your...children...after all APOLLO has taught them, they'll think they know everything. But they have to understand what you did for them. How you loved the whole world, so much. With an intensity that was...dazzling. Bruising_. 

She had felt it while the Nora tried to wash away hypocrisy with a layer of adoration - a sense of wonderment. The source of Elisabet's strength wasn't obligation, or pain, or rancor. It was being part of that same community - the community of empathy. Of feeling part of not a tribe, bounded by a name or a fate; but of humanity. A community of shared dreams and hopes. One of which could be part of.

Sylens' hologram had been standing in front of her in silence. It's blurred pink flickered as Ronson's blaze pulsed through her veins.

_I'm glad you shot down the Lightkeeper protocol in the end. I don't think I could've taken seeing another one of you. I mean...Elisabet Sobeck? There's only one. I miss you._

"Aloy?" What type of grimace must she have put, for Sylens to call her name with mellow? She hadn't understood Erend. His phrase made sense - it was the only thing that made sense.

She was stumbling in Elisabet's shoes, and it looked like it'd be for life. What was she, if no one could replace her? Could a tool be downgraded, prevented from serving, for its lack of greatness? Could someone motherless return the love they never knew? How could she stand up, in spite of all her hurt, and give with that generosity? 

Sylens sounded through the fog. Aloy moved, sensing his hologram approach. "She was better than them."

Months and months of search coming to an end, and her patience with them: she couldn't take one more hit - not yet, not before HADES was destroyed. So she turned the agony that was and threw it at him. Sylens was like her: scared, limited, afraid of living. "Can't you, just for a moment, stop calculating and let yourself _feel?_" He looked about to laugh. "To her, _everyone_ had value. Everything was worth saving. She gave her life on service for that idea." 

If everything had value, she did.

"No. She had a superior mind and a superior will. It wasn't about sentimentality."

If Ronson had called them -_all of them_\- Sobeck's children, she was too. If she had died for everyone, she had sacrificed for her. If Sobeck loved everything, she would've loved her as well.

"You're wrong." She'd rip Sylens to pieces before giving away that shadow of relief. "Remember - she knew it wasn't enough for GAIA to think, she taught GAIA to _feel_. To care. To sacrifice. To believe in life. Enough to fight against hopelessness. If it wasn't for that sentimentality, life would have ended. You and I would have never existed."

Elisabet knew what Erend had tried to make her understand for so long. If it wasn't for kindness, for friendship, for love - life wasn't worth it. Ted Faro was wrong, what had doomed the Old Ones wasn't technology or too much knowledge. It was a lack of compassion. 

They had massacred each other because no one saw the rest as themselves anymore. They were limited by the same logic that fed Sylens' arrogance. The one that put distance in front of hurting eyes in the name of progress. The one that made the Nora decide who was human and who was dirt, so their pain didn't matter. The one Avad, Ersa, Erend, and many others had tried to defy through hope in peace.

It was ironic, how much Rost and Elisabet resembled each other. Both had sacrificed themselves for love. One tasted like home and roots, felt like closeness. The other was distant, abstract, but warming in its unselfishness. Both were unutterable but expansive, so they swallowed her stumbles, and somewhere in Aloy's mind, Elisabet began feeling like the light bathing GAIA Prime. Quiet and ethereal, with speckles of dust and snow drifting serenely in its embrace.

* * *

_She had arrived._

His heart was howling when he reached the top of the Alight, but there was nothing. Several hours passed before he saw them: the small Nora party who refused to sleep within the city walls began spreading around the place, making them retreat.

Aloy had mentioned him, so he had recognized Varl without effort. His jaw had tensed in a unique way when Marad introduced him as someone who knew her well. The Brave had taken a step in his direction before demanding to see her. Erend didn't know where she was. No one knew.

They had arrived in Meridian with no further instructions. Varl had used the chance to mention that they weren't_ that close, then_, and he had done the same to make it clear that they were _friends_. Nakoa mediated when the silence tightened: an outcast Nora living in Meridian was the perfect intermediary. Avad had commanded him to not interfere but to remain solicitous if the need arose. It had been three long weeks. 

Weeks of losing sleep over hundreds of words. The first week he wasn't sure he'd be able to do anything else but make an ass of himself. The second week, he had a bunch of lines prepared. He had settled on keeping his distance when Aloy reached Meridian. She was kind, so she wouldn't push him away if he was friendly, not unless she didn't want him around at all. Which she'd say it if it was the case, and soon, every option was another spiked rock rolling in his gut.

"Your..._friend_ the Vanguard keeps looking over.” Varl’s nose creased as he sucked his cheeks inside his teeth.

Half a dozen Nora were waiting in the Alight, and her heart skipped with the view. It was for all the wrong reasons, but they were there. Like others had helped Elisabet when it mattered. And Varl had said he'd come just to see her, like he pleaded Sona to go past the borders to avenge Vala.

Still, it was his last words that made her doubts turn into wobbly curls playing with her stomach. There was a bunch of men with the Vanguard uniform, but it was something about the width of his shoulders. Maybe it was the way he moved his hands when he talked. She teased him, talking with Sona first. Hoping he'd crave to see her more if she did. That Erend would want to see her at all.

"Well, if they used to be Carja, how tough can they be?"

"Yeah, their best guys dress like birds. We'll rip their little feathers off."

"Let's not get cocky, boys." His voice was a freeze arrow stuck in her spine. Erend was beaming, his stand was firm and secure. The sudden need to run and hold him took her by surprise, but first, she needed to make sure he didn't loathe her. 

Erend felt like a kite, defenseless against the wind: she wouldn't approach him, so he didn't surprise when she began walking back to the entrance. His hope had recovered when she turned to meet the Nora warchief. His fear overshadowed everything: she began nearing, and he was sure a strike was coming. He repositioned his feet over the grass and prepared to seem supremely unaffected by whatever happened between them.

"Aloy!" Too late, because he felt the air hitting his gums for too long. His jaw didn't want to close.

_Impressive start._

"So, here we are again, gearing up for a fight," he said. "Only this time, it sounds like the bad guys have a lot more of firepower." Directing the conversation to the battle was crucial. "What are we up against, really?" 

Whatever he had planned melted with all of him when Aloy smiled. She was talking to him. _She was really talking to him. _"I'm not sure. But there's going to be a lot of them, and they'll have machines."

And close; a lot tighter than she had been to Varl: the Brave had been gifting him hostile stares while they talked. Erend had to bite his tongue more than once when his gesticulations threatened with touching her. It was idiotic relishing on that, but his pride didn't care to vanish as Aloy kept talking. "And if they get past us, it's not just Meridian that will fall. The rest of the world will go with it." 

"That's...big." He took a while to answer, but there was no trace of doubt in his eyes. _His eyes_. Aloy kept following them, wanting to rob every stare they'd give and steer them to her. Make sure that he was still able to see her. They did, for an instant. "Sounds like our kind of fight, right guys? Where do they put the Vanguard?"

Then he grinned. Erend's grins were healing. But then he strayed, avoided, and every lost gaze felt like metal opening skin. He was...calm. _Too calm_. 

A small head tilt shifted his attention to her armor: the question about the strange glimmers looked ready to be fired, but then he turned and harangued the Oseram around more again, getting more shouts to float in the space. The air left her ribs when he caressed her hips with a glance. She thought she had won when his left brow twitched as he noticed her wanting his lips.

"Damn right! You hear that? Nobody's getting past the Vanguard. We're here for Meridian." He leaned to whisper, and all of her senses were registering: the texture of his skin, his smell, his breath, stumbling. She could almost see him falling, making their mouths fuse. She was _there_, he was making her real. "And we're here for you." 

Aloy exhaled, and the world around Erend stopped with her. Maybe that's why her voice sounded faint, whisper-like. "Thank you, Erend. Ersa would be proud." 

Sliding his hand around her neck and letting her suck all the air from his lungs looked like a decent way to die. His bucket of things to do before going was empty: seeing her. Telling her that he'd be there when things got messy.

As much as her indifference stung, she was worthy of his life. His head would pop if any more blood accumulated under his chops; he wasn't going to disappear without fighting the uncertainties in her eyes. Leaving them with nothing left to say was the sour outcome. There wasn't losing dear things without some poison.

"Only if we win." She wanted to say more, but Erend turned. As he had months ago, in the palace. She had run then, did he want her to do the same? Aloy wasn't sure about what had happened. It wasn't..._bad_, but it felt even worse. They could have been almost strangers, and the conversation would have worked the same.

"What kind of machines they got?" She wasn't sure if it was Korduf's voice, but it woke her up from her stupor.

"Big, ugly ones. From the ancients." She had prepared for every type of reaction: anger, resentment, hatred, but _indifference_?

"Ugly and ancient, like your mother?"

"Worse. Like your wife!" How could he laugh? Couldn't he sense the ground cracking under their feet? 

"That's enough! This is what I have to deal with." Erend felt himself about to lose control: Aloy was making the whole being cool a lot more challenging than it was already. That didn't mean he wasn't going to keep trying. "Hey, you just can't leave me alone, can you?"

"I think she likes you." The voice came from under a different helmet then, one she didn't recognize. 

Was he flirting or serious? 

"You gonna kiss her, Captain?" Finally, someone who he could hammer for being an idiot. But his men being dimwits was the simple part. The question was as old as they were: _why_ was she lingering? 

"Shut up! Now! We'll just...pretend that never happened." Aloy would've preferred if Erend had grunted. Or kept _damn quiet_. Pretend that never happened? What exactly? The comment, their kisses? _Everything?_

Her feet planted steps between them. Each pulled her skin. The part that wanted to remain with him didn't let go when she couldn't hear his voice. Or when Olin's door opened for her hands. But her heart was only able to stretch so much. No wonder it burst with the strain.

* * *

Even Aratak had sent word he'd be arriving in a week, as far as the Cut was. From Petra to Vanasha -even Nil- Meridian filled with the people Aloy knew and appreciated. The only problem was _him_.

She had collected her courage and gone to his house only to learn that the Vanguard was camping in the Alight, in case the offense happened after dusk. The days passed, and a routine emerged: they'd spend long hours next to the Spire, waiting. Being that close should have helped, but the occasions she had managed to corner him - he'd move. There was always somebody else to talk to.

Avad's palace became a meeting point, and Erend wasn't creative on how to get there. He winced as he saw her coming. A man was about to pull the lever to go up to the mesa. She had waited for the _precise_ moment to run. Aloy jumped right before the elevator's door closed_. _The metal bars moved under her weight, and the world of the man at the lever, Erend's and hers shook for a short moment. Then everyone turned around, evading the awkwardness of an elevator's silence. 

Why was the elevator going that fast when she needed to keep him confined? Why was it so strenuous for her tongue to move? It wasn't a lack of words: they were making the same perpetual noise in her head than cauldrons did as they processed blaze. She felt as old, too. That volume of explanations would take a millennium to cook. Erend had turned as if there was nothing between them worth taking care of. Her ears were moving, but she couldn't hear anything, not even his breathing.

The next day he hopped out of the elevator without a word. She could've followed him, but her legs wouldn't move. He began using the elevators in Meridian Gates after that. Would he start climbing the butte if she followed him there? Then he wasn't in the Alight at the time he was supposed to be. Then she didn't have the confidence to keep greeting him only to get a grin - or a grunt. He hated her.

"...Sylens? Are you there?" Aloy despised them the most. Those moments were quiet became disturbing. "Guess I shouldn't ask ghosts for advice." Marad had been right. Waiting for a war to begin was the worst type of waiting: trying to cling to the little details had become exasperating, and she wasn't sure about what to do anymore. Her fingers touched air as she sorted through folders.

_There was so much I wanted to say to her, but none of it seemed fair. I'm guessing she has her hands full trying to save the world, and frankly, I remember that feeling._

_In the end, I settled for an ineffectual confirmation, hoping against hope that she would cast aside my fears. Nope._

_KENNY: Is it as bad as I think it is?_

_ANITA: Worse._

_ANITA: Go be with your sister, and tell CYAN that I said goodbye._

_So that's it. Untold destruction awaits. Billions of lives. My own, my family's. And yet my mind keeps coming back to Anita. I'll never see her again, feel her touch, hear her voice. No final embrace, no closure._

Kenny Chau and Anita Sandoval's story had kept nourishing her doubts and hopes for moons. They had met fortuitously, liked each other, shared one kiss. Anita had left - she had gone to work with Elisabet Sobeck, to bring GAIA to life. The resemblance was uncanny.

Their last words felt too much like the dead ones that now weighted between her and Erend. Aloy wished there were more answers in them. Or to know what Sandoval was thinking when she left Kenny - was she Anita? What if Erend was none, and her both of them?

He would look at her with sadness too often. She'd catch him glancing at her countless times during the palace meetings. The Alight had meaning, so she used it: she'd lie in the stone where they had done it together, and he'd always take a few steps to be alone. He'd watch her then, for as long as she wanted, even hours. 

Maybe sticking the Focus on his temple and making him listen would work. The red sheets in Olin's bed felt less borrowed after days of sleeping on them. The silk was making delicate sounds under her fingertips when _Sobeck Journal, 1-15-66 R_ popped on her Focus. The cloth wrinkled in her fist as she read.

_"IF, IF, IF. At least we won't have to endure the creepiness of raising and training clones of ourselves. The genetic material was never processed out of the cradle sites, so it's not even possible. For which I'm glad."_

It didn't reach the small bed next to the chimney. The Focus fell over the Carja details of the closest rug, immaculate. She hadn't been able to use enough force to break it. To free from everything. She couldn't.

She wasn't supposed to take any extra punch before the battle with HADES, so _why _were the people she cared about hurting her? Her mind shifted every day, several times a day: she was grateful, compelled to honor Sobeck's kindness. The resentment clouded her judgment every so often. The balance was precarious, so it could only die: she existed, and Elisabet, who had given her life to give life a second chance, didn't want her to. The single thread she had found to feel loved was wrong.

Aloy didn't know how much time had passed when someone knocked on the door. Her Focus was still where it had fallen, with the flames casting a long shadow under it. The knocks intensified. It was a reckless decision, but she wanted to be irresponsible for once. Her steps were sluggish, and when she opened the door without her Focus on, there wasn't any guard telling her that the time to surrender her life had come. 

"Erend?" 

Walking to the Palace at the end of the day was always full of temptation. It'd take a turn, and then it only took a few paces. Then he was knocking on Aloy's door. But none of that mattered: she didn't look angry, but terrified. Her eyes were reddish. Erend felt all of his nervousness shift target. 

"Are you hurt?" The guard next to them flinched when Erend's hands pushed her far from the door. He entered Olin's living room cautiously, looking back to make sure that her feet were still where he had left them. Aloy managed to straighten her shoulders and lean on the door, closing it with her weight. She had a chance to fix one mistake, and another to tell him. She wasn't letting go of any.

"Stop, Erend, there's no one." As miserable as it was, his hands found her face before he could stop himself. Her shoulders tensed before falling back on the door. What was making her eyes keep getting wetter, and how could he torture it? She closed them with a sigh.

"What's wrong? Don't even _try_ that." 

"I found my mother. She's been dead for a thousand years and...she just said that me existing is creepy, which is...a good story, I guess. And I'm about to die while trying to stab HADES’s head so...nothing much?" 

Her voice broke between this and that huff of contained sorrow. Seeing Aloy lie in the same place where he had missed her countless times kept making him waver. She'd stare at the sky, the distance wouldn't let him know if her chest was moving or not. Would she be paler, covered in blood, if she were to die just there? Would she even stop next to him if he was the one bleeding out in her place? And what would he say, crying over the words he hadn't said. The words he had come to say.

"What?"

His fingers slid from her cheeks to the border of her face, and Aloy felt the tears getting too big. Wasn't it wretched enough that she had felt happy about having a love that loved her the same it loved a bandit or a murderer? How much lower did she have to yield to find relief? She wasn't asking for much. A pretense of a mother would've sufficed.

"Can you...hold me? Just for a minute." She swallowed, wondering why her head felt like a stone, too heavy to look up. "Don't make me beg." 

Erend thought he had become good at restraining his need, but his defenses collapsed in one fell swoop: Aloy whimpered as he robbed her skin of one last hug. "Only one? I thought we had something about two minutes."

It was ugly, loud, and long. He didn't say anything, only kissed the top of her head, waved her in his arms, soothed her with his voice. It was going to be okay, whatever it was. He wasn't going to let her die. He was going to be there with her. All the way.

Would it go away if she looked, the care in his eyes? She didn't have to lift her feet to make it easier on his knees, they barely touched the ground, her back a squeezed thing inside the pair of arms that lifted her up. They still could be, those promises; he was a warrior, everything could be just a vague form of loyalty.

"So...you want to talk? it's fine!" Erend stammered. "If you don't, just...maybe it'd make things better." Tears were still streaming down her face when she came out of his embrace and pulled his sleeve to wherever. He would follow as long as there was just one chance to get Aloy back to where she was: inside his arms, safe. 

"They won't if you keep evading me. I'm already under pressure, in case you haven't noticed." He could only obey when she pushed him against the sofa before falling like a dead weight in the cushion next to where he landed. Crying was exhausting, but that wasn't it.

She had been greeting everyone as they arrived in the city, helping the Vanguard to evacuate people. Every day, every single moment. Erend knew well. He had eluded her, but it didn't mean he hadn't been a shadow under her steps. An excuse would be feeble, but the truth had to die with him on the Spire. "The divine one? Namman came looking for you today and told me you had mentioned a _pretty heavy divine pressure_. Is it that hard, being a Nora goddess? Your people kind of..._braved_ him." He had been wanting to ask for days. The worship made her so nervous that it probably had something to do with her mood.

"They are not my people. Like last time?" Seeing others bow made Aloy uncomfortable, but _Erend_, seeing that...

"Namman keeps insisting, 'all faiths united against the shadows' and all that. Half the Vanguard couldn't keep the food in their mouths with all that cackling." Erend stopped to check the width of that grin. "The Nora weren't so happy about having a Carja chanting psalms around, though. Can't fault them, but they didn't get to enjoy another of my splendid speeches...the pretty Nora boy had it under control. Should I bow and kiss your feet or something?" 

"Don't dare." His nape found the backrest as he grinned, wishing that she'd let him. The laughs quieted as she struggled to find the right words. "I...got inside the mountain, to meet my second mother. A door opened...and then I became their Anointed, they began bowing. Just like that."

Aloy shook her head to answer to the silent question coming from Erend's brows, then continued. "Lansra asked for forgiveness. _On her knees_. I'll have to find someone else to costume my Grazer sacrifice with." Was he smiling? "The _pretty Nora boy_ has been trying to make them stop, but..." He was, but it stopped. Wasn't he curious? It sounded like something she'd stop to listen to. Perhaps mentioning GAIA would've made more of an effect. 

"Yeah...not that I mind, just...there's little to do up there, so I've noticed you spend a lot of time with him. I mean, with all...all of them. Yeah." Would she forget about it if he stood and began imitating a turkey, maybe a Watcher? Flailing his arms and jumping around would be pathetic, but all of his corny jokes would fit between stupid and _that_.

"He's your age, so not a boy. And I'd rather call him Varl." For once in days, Aloy's hope soared instead of crashing. "He said he'd come to Meridian just to see me one more time."

"Hm." He could counterattack, it'd take a single mention of other arms to tease her, and he had had plenty. But he had traded his expectations for seeing her one last time; mocking himself within hours of dying wasn't the way to go. "So was it the first or the second one? The one that called you creepy. No matter who it was, they were wrong."

Aloy let her hand grab even more hair and twist until the pain floored her. "There's a chance you won't want to see me again after I tell you, so...I wish I had stayed. That night." 

Was his heartbeat roaring through his armor? It wasn't thick enough. Erend felt as though his wits had decided that sacrificing to feed a forge was better than remaining with him. But he didn't have time to think, because Aloy began talking. 

What was she to do, with so many lost caresses? The times she'd sulk when his fingers played her song like a Banuk shaman felt unrecognizable. Erend stroked her hair sometimes. Others, like then, her shoulder. He threatened to hold her hands a few times, but Aloy ended up disappointed in most of them. She wanted to tell a bit, but he'd stop if she quieted, so she talked, wondering if that stare, that brush of his fingers, or that sad smile would be their last one. 

"I didn't get my answer yet...the first one or the second? You said with the Focus machines do talk, but damn, you'd hope they'd be quicker than calling you creepy after a thousand years quiet." 

Erend had kept changing the limit, going back and forth through each they had gone through. He began stirring after the first hour. Her hand extended like a question, her fingers pointed at his belt in an attempt to get him to get comfortable. He hadn't looked at her once while he tugged at the clasps on his vest. He'd agitate when she tried to sit closer, grimace when she smiled for too long, kiss her wrist. Once, after she explained how she got that scar there while escaping -again- from Helis.

Then he left. 

He stepped out to grab dinner when her voice started faltering. Counting the paces between here and there was working against her sanity after the umpteenth time, but she had just described the synthetic womb. The metallic, dead tube that had held her. His boots hushed when he saw her leaning in the main doorframe with no more nails to bite. He was back with too many pies. He sat far. She couldn't pretend to touch him inadvertently.

Aloy was getting ready for his rejection when he changed the rules of her expectation again. The only thing coming from his mouth were questions, specific and detailed. Erend took everything in, somehow. "Wait here." He nodded. Each step made her grin: he had come back, knowing what she was.

He let her sit close enough to feel his heat all over her body. She'd have begged if he had, but he didn't object. Touching his face while putting the Focus on his temple wasn't needed, nor his hand holding her waist to prevent her from moving. His eyes opened, his hand slackened, and she fell to the other side of the couch feeling something that wasn't relief and regret, but a mix of both. Erend was seeing her. He was seeing Elisabet Sobeck. The silence lasted too long.

"I don't know if she's the first or the second one," Aloy said. Sylens had taken more than the usual to explain what a clone was, and she had spent more time thinking about how unusual it was to see him uncomfortable than processing his words. His answer informed her, accepting it hadn't gone as smoothly. "I'm her copy, so...the first? I found some of her journals, but they were damaged. The Focus repaired one before you knocked. You can't read old glyphs, I can..." 

Her index was pointing to the Focus. Aloy was a tiny sack of trembling bones trying to hide inside the couch's pillows. Erend didn't know what to say, so he grabbed her hand and pulled her closer. She dared, and their mouths were more one thing than two, but she recoiled. Then she began reading, and he didn't understand most of it. Being copied sounded like something he wouldn't want to go through either. Aloy was smirking as if she didn't want him to know how much the words burned in her throat.

"I saw her, right? But...you look just like her?"

He was scratching the back of his head, trying to choose his words with care. Aloy felt the tug of her lips, a smile she wouldn't have made willingly, but that came with the grace of knowing the future. He would leave. She would die. Nothing mattered, except doing what she was supposed to. Expecting more had been the mistake. It was always the mistake, indulging. "The match is not 100%, but I don't what it means. A 1% difference would _still_ make it creepy." 

"Well, there you have it. Some too many idiots'd love to meet themselves. Your mother, though? You're smart, so she must have been smart enough to know it'd be a lost cause. You're not the same, right? I bet you're even prettier than..._yourself_. I get it thought, imagine the commotion if there was another handsome guy like me around."

Erend moved his cheek closer to her hand so she could slap him better. He couldn't muster anything sensible, or an actually funny joke, but at least he wasn't dull enough to ignore that saying nothing would've been more hurtful.

"That'd be annoying." Looking at someone usually meant to stop looking at the ceiling. Aloy grunted when her eyes moved, but only to look at the ground. "I wouldn't know where to look." 

_Pretty_. Not a freak, or a weapon, or fear. Only Erend would call her _pretty_ after seeing Elisabet. Why did his smile always fade when he made her feel relieved? And how could that one word feel like an army against her sad spear. How would he taste if she bit him? Would he bleed if she cut him? Maybe Erend was another machine sent by GAIA to make sure she killed HADES. To make sure she didn't crumble before the right time. 

"I'm not like you, so we'd say the same all the time," he said.

"I could take one of you with me then. I'd like that." 

"Ha! I knew it, _she likes me_. Bet you'd use me as bait. Rocks don't pick up themselves." 

"I do. And...that'd be convenient." Silence. His eyebrows furrowed, but then he laughed. And nothing else. Aloy closed her eyes and puffed.

Erend didn't know what to do but stare when she stood. She'd stop, look at him, puff again, and keep rambling around.

"I like you," she said, and she shouldn't be saying those things while looking at him like that. Her hands had bounced in the air with each word, trying to hammer them in his head. But whatever was there was definitively gone.

"Yeah?" 

"Fine!"

Furious. Aloy was furious. The pain would be too large if he jumped in and the pond was empty: she was the type to run away, and kissing was one thing, toying here and there. This wasn't, not with her. She bolted upstairs, and his feet followed - then her back hit the balustrade that separated Olin's bedroom from the stairs. Her eyes were already eyeing the yellow rope staircase on their right.

"Don't." He muttered between his teeth. "Run away from me. I'll stay here. I can't take it anymore. Not even _once_." 

Her eyes slanted, and her voice was as worn as his own. "I'm not the one running away this time." 

"Yeah, sorry for not sticking around when you say and do the opposite of what you did last time every single time!" He had wanted to see her one last time and make her smile. Just once. Watch her laugh at his last lame joke. Becoming that joke wasn't in the schedule.

"I'm scared!" Her hands clenched the wooden rails behind her as if they were afraid they would drop her on the stairs. Aloy looked about to squeeze between the gapes of the railing. Her lips puckered - her face was burning. Who was this person who admitted to being scared, what had changed? 

Erend chaffed his hair a few times and tried to talk a few others. His voice sounded only after his fourth try. "Me too. Who are you, and what have you done with Aloy?" 

His fingers were twirling his earring nervously, as though they didn't want to leave the area around his nape for too long. "_You_ told me to be honest. Regretting now? HADES could attack anytime no-"

"I said, stop running away from me! HADES? A future I won't get to see? By the forge, I'm about to die! There's only one reason why I haven't left..._I can't_. But I won't let you shake everything and get away as if nothing! Not this time." 

"So don't! You could have left after seeing Elisabet! After knowing...what I am. You didn't have to come upstairs and make shallow excuses!" 

"Really, Aloy? It's time to vary your excuses because that one's so old I yawned! But let me plead, for the sake of old times. Why are you different from my ancestors? From myself who came from them? You feeling special or something?" He couldn't settle for anything that wasn't enough to cauterize every wound. Erend couldn't stop feeling that something else was happening. She was lying. Aloy wouldn't do that, feel that. Not for him_. _

"It's the usual, coming out of a machine! Being a copy of someone else! Why would I think that? Don't pretend you don't mind!" 

"Call it a day, girl. You're just Aloy for me. I won't ever think you're replaceable." How could she go back there, after saying she wasn't running away? Why had he thought this time could be different? "I wish you were."

"So stop assuming you're like your father." Her bearing changed. "You'll turn me into a cheap copy made for dying every time you think that." She walked until being a rasp cutting his throat. "You can't say that and think you're like your father. If I'm just Aloy, then you're just Erend. That...or I have no choice but to turn into a Ravager and sacrifice myself for Project Zero Dawn. Guess the last part's..." Her eyes narrowed, like a dart aligning with the exact middle of his eyes. "Imminent?"

"Not funny."

Aloy wanted to scratch her ears - they were buzzing, the bedroom was burning - there'd be a lot of vapor if they kept heaving like that. "Do you hear me laughing?" 

The muscles of his neck thickened, his nostrils stretched. Erend sounded as if he needed to talk to breathe. "Who's stealing jokes now?" 

Repeating their words meant they kept remembering them. He swallowed and her back hit the handrail; he mimicked it, closing in on her body from the front. Getting her closer, letting her hear his whisper.

"I mean, I get it, but..." His hands grabbed the balustrade when their foreheads touched. "When you say that you...like me? You mean...?" 

Their noses touched, rubbing to gauge how much the other's mouth opened. Their eyes forced them to shut up. It didn't make sense, lying. Pretending they weren't figuring out what part of armor to remove first, that she wasn't noticing her muscles wanting to give up. That his hand wasn't moving, slow as a Tallneck's pace, to her mouth.

"I need to repair GAIA...if I ...survive. The battle may have started already, and...I'll leave...all the ti-" His hands always taught her why he was leading an army ahead instead of being at its rear: he grabbed her thighs and upped her above the rail. Her legs obeyed. His head moved up and down, that wandering movement of a mouth going for a kiss. Aloy saw the nut on his neck move once, twice, three times; the same three times she put a cheek on his beard, on his chin. Their faces were the loops of a knot coming undone. He wouldn't believe it, how much she had missed him. She couldn't quite swallow it. "I'll always leave." 

"You know I don't give a damn about that now, right?" 

Aloy said nothing when he lifted one of his hands and slowly opened the buckles on his glove. She sighed when the leather around his wrists became loose. Erend said nothing when she raised an empty hand and he moved the untouched glove to her palm. One strap of leather went up and another down, making no noise, no sign. It was so quiet that the caresses did not sound when she grabbed both of his hands and held them to her face. His fingers made no noise on her eyelids. The world was hushed.

"So? The Eclipse won't wait until you decide to do something."

"Fire and spit, girl." 

It wasn't just words. He said them with his hands, feeling every bone in her spine, and with his tongue, licking all the times she swallowed saliva, the saliva that kept accumulating in her mouth as if even her gums knew what was about to happen.

Her nipples knew it too. They made her moan when he put them in his mouth, as if they didn't want to embarrass her, telling her what she should do - and her hips helped her too, slipping as Erend grabbed them with both hands and carried them to the bed, sat down and stood them up between his legs. He kissed her belly like he knew there was a stone in it, and that kissing it would make it roll.

The pants didn't put up much of a fight either. His two thumbs tamed them as if the cloth wanted to let him do it too, helping the movement of his fingers down her legs be soft, his nose below her navel be soft, the kiss just below it be soft. Erend watched her. He put his chin on her belly and looked at her, waiting. She stomped hard so that he knew the leather was under her heels. So that he could hear it over the sound of her hands caressing his hair, and over his long, droning moans.

His face rubbed against her navel as it had on that sad day; she put her hand on the back of his neck, too. But Erend wasn't crying, but smiling, and he was lifting her off the ground even though his hands weren't thrusting her up, but gripping her ass. But Aloy rose, and rose even higher when he came down, sliding his fingers gently into almost her groins, dusting her inner thighs. Threatening to touch her. She put her hands under his nape and under his shirt and he licked from one hip bone to another, with his eyes closed.

The shirts flew to the ground as if he hated everyone who sewed shirts, and those who made pants, and particularly those who made boots with steel rivets that fell as if they were going to break the floor. He undressed for her: he only moved as she peered under his hands, leading them to where she wanted him to move, imagining what was coming, saying "Go on."

But she wasn't sure, because she didn't know many things, so she just did what she did know. She knew that she could open her lips, that she could put her fingers inside, and that having sex was putting Erend's cock into her. So she opened her lips, separating them with her fingers, and Erend sucked his mouth. He licked himself again as she leaned forward, pretending she knew exactly how to sit, naked, on someone's lap. How to grab a pair of shoulders while a cock brushed against her, while its tip, hard, brushed against her. 

It was then that Aloy learned the first of those things you don't see when you watch others having sex: Erend threw her on the bed, turning her face down, planting a huge palm in the middle of her back. "Be still," he said. 

And she stood still, because the power had changed when he decided to stop watching what she was doing as if he didn't know he knew more than she did. The tips of his beard went up and down her back.

"So... how many comments a week you get about your ass?"

"What?"

"To know how many blockheads I'll have to keep away from you." 

The bed sank when he sat on her thighs. His chest resting on her back was hard, and his ankles were pinned firmly to her calves. Erend's cock whipped her cheeks every time he moved to bite her neck on the right and then on the left, bites that she had never had before, trying to grab and suck and lick the skin at the same time. 

"None?"

"I wouldn't have believed that before" was a furrow of hot breath falling on her ear. "Less I will believe it now that I have seen you naked" made her feel, with a painful intensity, how even the hairs on the back of her neck were curling. It was almost unbearable, his touching her. 

She couldn't look at him when he came over to kiss her. She couldn't, because he grabbed her as if she were hurt, one hand on her jaw, the other on her waist, moving her so as not to hurt her, carrying her back to the pillows. He lay down beside her as if they were not having sex, but talking, resting on a bed. 

Doing anything of what she expected, and what she imagined he expected and didn't do because she didn't know how. His tongue slipped so lavishly through her teeth that she could feel it sliding through her whole body, never running dry. And so the heads were back. Heads whose owners she did not know, trapped on legs whose owners she did not know, sucking on soft, moist skin whose owner she did not know either. They frequented that cave in the Embrace that she learned to revisit in silence.

The images had blurred over time until they became just the tip of a tongue flicking, a cock disappearing inside a body. Now the tongue had a face, and around his face wasn't just any body, but Erend’s. And his cock, erect, and his neck so close she grabbed it.

Aloy imagined there was only one way to grab a cock and put a hand on a neck, that Erend writhing suddenly and moaning so hard it was his nose and not his mouth the one that had moaned meant that she was right. That she had to bit his throat harder because he moaned harder when she did, and press his cock harder until the rigid core she felt under the soft skin bumped into her palm. 

“Fire and spit, you're late for something?”

"I did it wrong." Aloy looked at the cock and the neck that had flown out of her hand. It seemed so simple, so plain, and yet she had done it wrong. 

He chuckled. "Have you done it before?"

She wanted to hit him, hit him without hurting him, bite his nose and stop him from smiling like that. "Why are you asking like you don't know?"

"Then let me show you. I like it, you know..." He grabbed her hand, and the two hands, his and her, together, began to rub and touch him, moving rhythmically, rubbing skin and fingers against fingers. "That mine is the first one that you do this to. I wouldn't care if it wasn't." He raised his eyebrows before trying to recover his breath. "But... I not only don't care. I like it. And I like you." 

Her hand was pounding the spit, the spit that Erend had spat into her hand, and it was making noises that weren't the lush moans she had heard from afar, noises that were almost unpleasant at times: Erend's wrist —those wide, strong wrists that wielded a hammer like it was silk— creaked. The sheets rang out when his voice told how to, how much, where, and Erend began to twitch with pleasure on the bed. One leg stretched, shrank, his head touched the pillows with the top. The friction changed its sound when the saliva dried up.

"I know it can be done,” she said, stating what her mouth should have said the first time it did something.

“Sure does.”

Erend looked at her lips floating above his glans. Then he looked down at her knees, perhaps noticing the strange way she had moved to suck him, as if her body had decided that it was better to prove herself as soon as possible than to move well. She wanted to hide under the sheets.

He had never kissed her like that: parting when the kiss was at its best, forcing her to chase him, to follow him higher and higher until she was on her knees, and then lower and lower until Erend pushed her with his nose and spread his legs: she didn't know whether to suck the reddish top, slide her tongue along the line that separated it in two, or lick the body, lick the veins. Which part would make him feel the same as she did when she touched herself? It looked nothing alike.

Erend waved his hips as if they were a bell and smiled as if it were not right to be proud that his cock was so straight without anyone holding it. The end fitted into her lips. His body melted: the pillows went _pfft_ when Erend fell straight on them. His ribs seemed to want to touch the ceiling. 

She had never known where it was, her throat, not like that, but he filled her mouth, she wanted more, and her throat told her it was enough. Erend heard it too. He'd slide out, puffing out his red cheeks and heat-stroke forehead, rubbing her ears. That time he rubbed the shiny layer that covered the head to the base. His voice was hoarse when he said, "Suck on this." 

His balls were clutched, squeezed, moved upwards. Aloy bent down skeptically and ran her tongue over the flattest part, going up as he said with his chin, up and up until there was no more up. Erend's hands pushed her down, and suddenly they were speeding up when the lower part, the one she could not swallow, became his moving fist. She hated that fist. It clashed with her nose, and with her mouth, and she did not know why it was there; if it was her, or if it was him, and any other mouth could not have swallowed it all either. Erend didn't seem to see her trying to press her face against the fist. Or that his "Yes, yes" that turned into three, then four, and died in a choked moan on the fifth made her clitoris thunder, and her stomach warm below the navel, and that she wanted to make them six “Yes” instead of a row after row of two. 

"It looked like you liked it?"

"I can only come once." 

“So?”

Aloy frowned. Was he pretending not to make her feel bad? Erend would do something like that. The corners of her mouth had felt proud for a moment, but they had been too fast. They had just learned that you could suck too hard, or too slow, or too fast. Or with _too many teeth_.

"Uh... I thought maybe you wanted to..." He looked at the gap between her legs and then at his cock as if he had just lost something he had been waiting for years. “It’s fine, let— “

"I want to. I do." 

Erend put his hands on the sides of her knees, pushing his fingers under them until Aloy left him, rising a little. He dragged her as if she were weightless, putting her between his open legs and sitting down. His teeth brushed her nipples when he had told her not to use hers before, nibbling, moaning as if he didn't want to do her any harm but couldn't resist. They fell like a disaster on top of each other, with legs and kisses in disarray, stumbling. 

"Then, tragically, we have to stop. To keep going! By the forge, Aloy…” He laughed at her grimace as if everything she was thinking was nonsense, and if he’d like to hear more about it for hours, how much she wanted to please him. As if he could tell she was thinking, as she did here and there, that others had done it. They had been better, too. She scowled. "Besides...it's your turn."

He stopped when he laid down on top of her as if he also knew the moment would be lost if he moved: when they first met like that, naked, their thighs brushing against each other. She liked his shoulders, so she liked him there, with his arms stretched out over her head. Erend looked like a roof, with a wide back that would cover her whole if she bent her legs and stuck them to her chest, with longer hair on the left side of his head. He hammered with his right.

Aloy always imagined his left hand struggling to pass the blade across his scalp with the same precision as his right hand had without success when she touched his head. Maybe that's why she kissed it when Erend rolled it over her side into her face: she kissed and sucked his hand as he came down, in kisses too, through her breastbone. As he bit into each rib to find out how many there were, what were their names. He asked many questions to her waist too, and made friends with her navel, and the pale hair that covered her stomach. 

Erend taught her then what you could never see when you observed other people having sex: he adored the red hair that covered the skin between her legs as if he had imagined it to be that color but not in detail, and he wanted to know them all. He looked at her then, and that view, Erend with her legs pressed against his cheeks, was new. 

It was also new to see him take her feet, cross one over the other, and put her knees on her breasts. Slide his tongue along the curve of the fold her legs made against her hip. Follow the roundness of her ass to pass to the other side without going around her lips. He drew a straight line. Aloy didn't know if it was his tongue or his nose, or both.

She began to squirm when he spread her legs, when he put his face in front of her naked open legs and blew. Her lips crumpled when one of her feet decided to remind her that no one had ever done that before, that she still had crumbs of shame left. Erend kissed it to get it out of his way, licked the heel and sucked her whole leg as if the entire desert hadn't gone into that room and they weren't sweating.

Aloy wished again that his tongue didn't taste, that his nose didn't smell, that he stopped looking at her because something bad was going to happen when he put his fingers inside her and found out that people couldn't be copied perfectly. It didn’t make sense, copying people just like that. 

That something was wrong, and she had never known anything to be wrong in her whole life. It had to be there, where she had never looked, the sign of what she was. 

"If you don't want this, ju--" 

"I told you I do," she said. "Why do you stop?" 

Erend sat down regretfully. Aloy looked up at the ceiling: that high, echoing ceiling of the room without windows that made each moan louder.

His fingers slid across, stroking the short hairs he had already stroked. "You don't like it?" 

And he stared as if he wanted to see her respond, as if he wanted to prove that sliding a finger along the edges of her lips made her knees shrink and her toes squeeze. Aloy felt that her stomach wanted to escape and that the spasms were its best attempt. Erend inhaled. 

He didn't wait for her answer. He didn't need to. He slipped behind her, turning her over a bit to lie down behind her, to get his face into her neck. To grab her hand and crush it against her lips and make them drip. Aloy felt the wetness on his chest wetting her back as he grabbed her knee and ran it over his thigh. 

To torture her. "Show me," he said. "Like I showed you." 

"Eren-"

"I love your hands.” And he grabbed her hand and urged it to show him. “All of you." And she showed him.

Erend's fingers pretended to be waiting for hers a couple of times, that they needed to feel how she circled her clitoris, how to get in, how to get out. He let hers in first as if to say "See? You were right. Mine are much thicker and longer." 

They were. The competition was to see which of the two was more scandalous: whether she, when she felt his fingers had to bend, lengthen, double to make her feel that way; or whether he, panting, using every muscle in his arms to make her moan as she didn't want him to hear her moan. 

Breathing through her mouth as she didn't want him to hear her breathe, and sucking on the wrist under her skull as she didn't want him to see her do, because the third thing she learned that night was that there were many ways to get naked.

“Let me see?” But it wasn’t a request. Erend knelt beside her, and before she could do anything, he licked. “There...” His tongue made an indecent noise as he slipped from finger to finger of his hand. "Quit fretting, because I want more." 

It was a disaster. He moved where she didn't expect him to, with a speed she didn't expect, blunt, starving: Erend rolled to the ground and the world vanished. Aloy opened her eyes. She wasn’t breathing. He had her left leg clutched in one hand, that leg that still didn't know where to lay. Her right leg was trapped by the thigh, resting on his shoulder. The little earring that grazed her left groin must have been the coldest thing in the whole room. 

His lips tightened. He sucked, and she saw his lips move, and his tongue flick, and his beard change shape as his cheeks hollowed. And so Aloy knew, suddenly, what it was like to tell —really tell— the world to go to hell: HADES, and GAIA, and that part of her that had been fearing to hear another _knock, knock, knock_. Her very name. Even the ceiling was not shaped. Not even the shame was shaped. There were only Erend's lips stuck to her, and his fingers, discovering pleasures that you couldn't say no to. 

The first time she learned how Erend’s knuckles impacted on her hip bones with a sharp thud, he sucked on her nipple. He put it in his mouth and sucked as though the amount of skin between his lips were sucking was going to make his fingers go deeper, and make her knees dangle more, and make her feet push against him more and her hips rise more inches off the bed. His thumb found the right tune on her clitoris, and no sensation was old when he stuck his fingers in at the same time, when he sipped her lips while she tried not to make a sound. 

She wanted to tell him she hadn't wanted him as much as when she saw him groaning in her lap, almost whimpering, sure that she was coming against his face. That they would make an escape plan, that she was willing to die without honor if she could be with him, there, just like that, if Meridian were to sink into hell. She would have told him everything she would never do, but Erend stood up, panting, and his beard was wet, dripping. She backed up. Spread her legs.

His body was heavy. She said nothing when he didn't stop all that staring because she wanted to see him too. Erend moaned in small steps, the small steps they took, she hung on his neck, joining forehead to forehead. He entered her carefully, feeling her out, waiting for her to stop opening her mouth and nod. She liked it the most, his moans when they were so close they tickled.

"I'm inside of you." He said it and she nodded because he wasn't asking if it hurt like he, over and over, had. He was just saying a simple fact, spoken in the low voice of one who has finally done something they thought they would never do, like a confidence that wants to be told that it is right. That it is happening.

So they kissed looking at each other, and hugged looking at each other, and Aloy thought Erend wouldn't feel like that, different. Someone who now knew that it was the rhythm of one hip hitting the other that made the pleasure, that sway of only the two of them. That knew how her hands squeezed his arms, and how Erend would go inside her as he moaned in her mouth, as if how much she pressed was how much she loved him. 

The new her that saw and heard nothing else when the pleasure reached the mountain peak before it became a new slope again, the slopes that Erend seemed to count as if there was a measure for everything she was feeling: the new her who knew that one could, for an instant and with him, just with him, lose one's limits.

Erend threw himself on the bed next to her, panting: "Make me come." His cock was covered with fluid, his chest and face dripping. He pulled her wrist, her angle, her legs. "It hurts?”

"No, it's..." Aloy moved her hip from left to right, and from right to left. Erend could fill her belly when she sat on him, as if she could feel his tip touching her navel. It was uncomfortable. But his fingertips were clawing at her thighs, pleading, and his hips were twitching as he tried not to moan too much in case she didn't like how it felt.

It was known, the movement: it was born in her glutes, settled in her legs, and her hips went up and down, bringing the impulse to her hands. Aloy wrapped her fingers in the hair of his chest: it could be pain or pleasure, his eyebrows joining, his mouth open, his breath gasping. But she didn't have to guess.

Erend groaned, and when he decided to sit down and sink her weight into him they groaned together. He led her along, shaking her waist until the rhythm was right, pushing up when she didn't know if he was in or out, and asking her for more because he believes she could do what she wasn't sure she could do. 

He opened up her knees, pushed her back. Told her he wanted to see his cock entering into her, and when Aloy touched herself as he asked her to, wrapping two fingers around his cock, Erend moaned more. He moaned so much that she squatted and learned what it was like to touch herself while Erend watched: how he spent every corner of her name, whispering it in every possible way, licking her knee, her wrist and her elbow because it was the only thing he could suck on. 

What she liked learning the most, though, was how an orgasm (that another word she learned from him) looked when it began forming on his face. Which muscles trembled, and how he opened his mouth without fully opening it. How often he bit his lips and touched her breasts, and how much he liked to squeeze her nipples, and bend and squirm in the bed so that she would not doubt that he was enjoying her.

She also learned that he could move so fast inside her that she could not move, but could face him with her eyes almost blank, her shoulders tight; that the tiredness that sometimes made him or her stop disappeared when she moaned, and that moaning made him happy. Aloy moaned. She wanted to take it, and Erend gave it when she went down to his mouth.

He threw her back on the bed, hard, as hard as he threw himself on top of her, grabbing her jaw and forcing her to look at him, to put her hands on his shaved head. The sheet seemed to cry as he twisted it into his fists, as their bodies bounced and the cloth raised her back and her head. 

"You're mine" sounded as if he needed to say it but didn't want her to hear it, just as Erend opened his mouth as if all the "y's" he hadn't been able to pronounce when a groan came in the middle and he couldn't finish saying her name would suddenly sound. But the sound - those deep moans and groans that made her feel invincible - only exploded when she said: "Yes". 

His body was heavy, and he weighed more the more she felt her belly against his belly, her chest against his chest. When Erend's hips started to sway in little bumps. When she learned -the last thing she learned- that when her insides burned, she could feel him pouring into her, and that she liked being full of him.

Aloy imagined how they looked, she and Erend, clasping as if they were going to die soon and would never hug like that again if they let go. 

Hiding in the corner between her shoulder and her neck was the only option: he had got lost in her feet rubbing his hips. In her teeth, biting his wrist as he touched her face. In the way she said his name while she pulled his hair, as no one else did. 

Erend hadn’t stopped: his chest couldn't take all that pleasure in her face. Then the bed creaked as if all the splinters they had made wanted to come free, her nails barely hurt skin. Filling her had been more about him than about her - her insides, all of her. Owning her all. Had she been in pain while he couldn't listen? Had she wanted to stop when he prayed her name? 

Hiding in the corner between her shoulder and her neck was the only option until her arms circled his shoulders and head. Her fingers drew shapes on his scalp like they did when he most needed them. "All good?" And she nodded. He didn't have to leave. Her answer had been tightening her grip. 

Erend hoped it'd be his last memory. Aloy, looking peaceful inside his arms, grinning. They were fighting the drowsiness to keep cuddling.

"Your mother..." Aloy started as if she understood and didn't understand why, just then, was the best time to say what he was saying. "If she knew you are taking care of her project she'd be...damn, she'd probably wonder how in the forge you managed to find all of that by yourself after her world turned into ashes. She'd be _ proud _." 

"She rebuilt _everything_. After an army of self-replicating machines...obliterated it. You weren't listening, were you? She’s not even...my mother. She’s...me."

Erend rolled his eyes but kept tapping her jaw softly. "Then you've held up pretty well considering you're over a thousand years old. Of course she's your mother, what else would she be?” He paused. He didn’t what she was either, that Elisabet, but he knew what Aloy needed her to be. “Have you seen your Focus? There's nothing like that in the world. Our world. You told me GAIA was a thousand times better, if not more. I'm sure she'd be...fascinated?" 

"Of how...savage we are. Fascinating." 

"After what we just did? Sure." Aloy smiled with the shyness and haughtiness with which she had started smiling since he wanted her, as he could never before, when he saw her naked. Erend placed himself a little higher on the pillows and made her lie down on his chest. Her whole back, legs and all, stretched in front of him. He wanted her again. "Damn, I never remember you're Nora, imagine the odds. Forget Lansra, GAIA'd kneel at your feet for learning how to use your Focus by yourself. You're so smart." 

"That was luck. I found it after falling in an Old Ruin." 

"Yeah, now imagine what I'd have done with it. Fire and spit...listen, I know she would have loved you if she had known you. She wouldn't like a...copy, as you say, but..._ you _?" 

"Because you do?" 

"That's..." It wasn't a lie. Having said it wasn't a mistake, either. 

“You said you do.”

“Ah...don't worry, people would just say it sometimes, when having s-"

"No one has ever told me that." 

The hand that had separated from her body to fly over their heads, trying to make the stench of excuses go away, lost strength. It swept, wounded, until it squeezed the body that was trying to break away from him. Her eyes were wondering why others got so casually what she had sought so desperately. 

"I...love you. Don't!" Erend saw his fingers resting on Aloy's mouth like two stones. Two stones thrown at the worst of times, two stones that told her to shut up everything she had always had to shut up. "Just...don't." 

Aloy wouldn't know. The subtle buildup within a couple's privacy wasn't something she could've known of. The things he had learned about what it meant to say those old, honest words.

"Hey, look at me. Shit...I...that's not it, okay? I do. It's...you're not supposed to say it...just like that." 

"You just said the contrary." 

She was trying to bury her face between her knees after having told him -with her eyes, her shoulders narrowing- that her mother wasn't her mother. That she wouldn't have wanted her. That she felt like no one did.

He feared. That she'd get burned by the intensity, that it'd be her _ too much, _the way he loved her. It was too much for him, so why wouldn't she feel the same way? Why shouldn't Aloy, who was always going to leave, feel dizzy if he told her everything he wanted. Aloy, who made him think that whatever she gave was always more than what he could ask. 

“It'd feel like you said it because I did. If…” But he found nothing. There was no small mockery in the way she clenched her jaw, nor any disgust in the finger she nervously scratched on her elbow. “If you were going to. I haven't." Looking at the hairs above his forehead expand as he pulled them helped to dodge her sneer. "To my mother, maybe? And to Ersa, once. I thought she was dead. Turns out she was joking, you'd think she'd know better than doing that while being covered in blood and mud..."

She was. She was looking at him with hatred, and he was mumbling with panic. Erend felt every gap around them at that moment, the gaps that growing up the way she had grown up put in her way, the gaps that his inexperience put in his way. He wondered how many times they had fallen on them, and whether they would stop falling.

"I haven't told...to anyone else." He paused. "Not like this. That." 

"You mean you didn't just say ‘I love you’ to anyone else?" He sighed and turned, spreading his legs around her. Aloy looked about to grunt, but she let him surround her with his arms, stick his nose on her cheek.

“I love you. So...so much that...I told you. I wish it was less." Their bodies breathed in air at the same time, as if they wanted to check that he was speaking the truth if they became bloated at the same time. “I love you.” 

"You do?"

"Hm...yeah, I do. I really do." 

Her eyes, growing impossibly wide. His body, burning with the slightest of her touch. Her pout when he pulled her, his back falling on the soft sheets. The room smelling like sex as they kissed. Their sex.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy new year! :) Quite long chapter, thanks for reaching here if you read it! know these are too long but I wanted to keep the story ordered like this, following canon/the relationship arches, so yeah, thanks :)
> 
> I remember hating Guerrilla a bit when I reached this part. The girl barely learned that she had no mother and then they threw that Sobeck diary in her face and Ronson saying that no one could replace her, which I understand, but still. I really wished we had a canon-version of how Aloy took these events.
> 
> References: Aloy and hell; she says "What the hell?" after defeating her first Deathbringer and "meeting" HADES. It makes sense that the servitors would teach the first humans about the most widespread religions, I guess.
> 
> And finally, she mentions that "pretty divine heavy pressure" to Namman when you talk to him before the battle. 
> 
> Thanks for reading :)


	11. After the battle

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There's a *slightly* rougher smut scene in here (hair-pulling, spanking...) If not your kink, stop reading after the first word in bold, keep reading after the second.
> 
> Also, this and the next chapter are more of a fluffy, slice-of-life (and self-indulgent) thing meant to describe how their relationship is post-battle and how things may go long-term. There's little angst - so beware :P

The number of people attending the palace meetings varied. The Nora were always invited, as most allies who had come to help. Some were invariably present; others never took part and would be informed of any specific instruction by Aloy. They hadn't stood next to the other in the past days, but he never guessed staying close to her would draw so much attention. 

She had stiffened and slipped a few inches while the voice in his head assured him it was only prudence. It was only reasonable, but she had looked irritated when he sought solace in her eyes. Two of the five scouts hadn't returned, and those who had brought bad news. The traces left by the enemy put them close, close enough to assume it'd happen later that night, tomorrow at most. It hadn't been a day. Her smell was still all over his skin, and he'd shake when the scent would reach his nose. 

Erend's frustration began as she urged him to finish his meal. He had tried to help and butchered one of her braids; they had kissed loads, but never as much as he wanted to. They could go there, where they had eaten before leaving for Pitchcliff. It was the closest to the Alight of the spots where they had eaten. Aloy grinning more than usual was enticing; he had taken the first step out of Olin's instead of grabbing her back to the bed. And then the next, and the following.

He regretted each, but duty called. Not wanting to be seen groping each other was okay, too. Sitting together in the Alight would be chaste enough. Aloy never looked back before sitting with the Nora. He couldn't follow her there. She knew it. The next morning brought his distrust back. They were expecting the assault at night, and it wasn't happening with his men alone while he slept, so he had stayed next to the Spire. Aloy had acceded to go back to Olin's after his voice, Varl's, and Teb's began making her head explode.

"Hey, did you slee-" She kept walking past him, trying to get them far, very far from everyone. He followed her until Varl's gaze wasn't burning his nape, and then a little more.

Her words passed care, but her voice annoyance. "Did you? The ground behind the Vanguard's spot isn't that hard, and there's shadow. You should sleep." 

She kept looking to where the Nora were. "I'm doing the afternoon shift too. The Vanguard who had to cover it can't make it, so..."

Her jaw tensed for a moment, but there was no further reaction. "So you're not going back to Olin's? Fighting while barely open your eyes sounds like an efficient way to get killed." 

"Yeah, I know...I'll try." 

She was so different. Aloy was so different behind Olin's door that Erend wondered if kicking every door on Meridian would help. His body revived when he pushed the door with his fingertips. It was open, and only Aloy's steps rushing down the stairs could make it better. Several Eclipse had been lurking around the city since that morning, the air was dirty, and the faint traces of smoke made eyes cry. Sounds were coming from the jungle, and sometimes, they would see masses of trees moving from the Alight. 

He said he had to go back in a few hours, Aloy repeated twice they had to stay combat-ready. The strain was more persuasive than their pretenses: hands challenged every omen as they tore armors, clothes, and any pain he had been harboring in his chest. His fingers made her drip flood. They bumped into a wall; her mouth sucking his balls made him so hard the drought stung. Erend saw the dresser at the top as they swung over the stairs. 

It'd put her hips slightly above his reach, so he'd be able to stop pretending to have some self-control. The rims of her entrance greeted his glans as he watched. She pleased him, sliding her slender fingers inside alongside his shaft. The rough edges of the mosaic hanging from the wall pricked his palm. 

He had to seek support when the gap widened until there was nothing between him and the hair coating her lips. Aloy kept moving to the front, pushing her legs against his back. Putting his hands below her knees and lifting her was too comfortable. So easy that he froze when her moans became a grunt. She was hanging, nailed against the drawers by his cock and thrusts in spite of the sweat. The skin under her knees glid over his palms; her elbows slipped from his neck when he moved.

"You okay?" She wasn't wincing or frowning. Her body wasn't tense. Her hips weren't moving back, but stirring, testing how it felt. But he knew. He hadn't had her like that, not yet.

Erend tried to search for an answer in her pause. "You weren't this deep." 

"Let's move to the bed?” Aloy moved her head so he could kiss and rub his nose in the space between her brows again. ”I just want you." 

She shook her head, and he hadn't any idea left on how to contain. "No." 

"Then bite me if it hurts." Her wonder lasted the few moments it took him to grab the skin of her neck with his teeth and pull it up with his lips until reaching her chin. Her bones began matching his rhythm, smearing the last traces of his wavering little by little: he moved his hands under her ass and upped her, her arms and legs surrounded his shoulders and hips. The chest began lamenting under the crush of their bodies swaying back and forth. 

* * *

"Where was she last seen?" The question wasn't so, but a fiery command. His fingers should've been the ones clutching the collar of that Nora, but the thought in his head never stopped being only that, and the voice that had sounded hadn't been his own, but Varl's. A damn wall. His list of things that could kill Aloy was excruciatingly long. A bunch of stupid chunks of rock never made it. 

The words echoed like a tremble. "The ridge fell in pieces, all of it! She didn't make it!" They were crying for her this time. The Nora were few, but their laments were as awful as the ones he had heard in the Embrace. It sounded like his voice, shouting inside his head.

Varl stuck his spear with force on the ground. Erend's mind burst. "She _has_ to be alive, we must trust the Goddess! She _chose_ her!" 

It wasn't his lips the ones she had been tasting. She hadn't snuggled against his chest, bit his ear, asked about the scars on his ass while both laughed. He hadn't seen her hair spread on the bed like a flame while she muttered his name. So why could he claim he'd search under every rock until finding her? He couldn't want to more than he did. It wasn't possible. His voice was rasp: Erend wondered if he had the strength to waste on talking. "She wanted us to be up there! _That's_ what she wanted!" 

Varl turned to face him. Erend hadn't hated anyone as he did when the Brave's breath stretched over his face. "Is this what it means to be _friends_ in your tribe? Abandoning them when they need you the most!" 

It'd be better if the Nora had been a waste of air, but he wasn't; she needed him. Aloy needed them. "What are you saying when you find her? Hey, you're alive! You won't be for long, and the world will disappear too! Let's celebrate? Too bad I don't have the time to see the spit she'd throw at your face!" 

The shouts below had made them doubt and leave the top, but the Spire wasn't far. Reaching there wouldn't be any tougher than not rotting anywhere else.

* * *

The clinking of his boots was slow, but Sylens' lance looked great stuck in HADES' core. Elisabet's hologram filling the sky had made her feel comforted, not second-class. She was there, _with her_, saving the world again, being responsible until the very end. Rost's murderer was dead, his army defeated. As far as she knew, her friends were alive. Erend was alive. She had survived.

Aloy grinned with all the satisfaction in the world, waiting until the sounds were close enough: her bow pointed at his chest, but she hadn't tensed it. Erend jumped, and her laughter didn't mislead his eyes. They kept looking straight at hers as he made the steps between them. There was nothing but their silverish shine and the broad smile no one prized as he did. Except there was: Aloy turned; half annoyed, half alert. Varl must have had approached along with Erend, but for once, she hadn't noticed anything. Her arm was waving her bow in the air when_ Gaia Log: 3 Feb 2065 R_ popped in her Focus.

_Varl_. 

Erend's plan was patting her shoulder, testing her reaction. He was grateful toward it, so trying not to suck all the air she was breathing with his arms would come if she didn't complain. Her smile was a door, her eyes on his lips a window. His body was about to comply with her summons. Then _Varl_ had to exist. He had tried to smile, but the effort wasn't working the second time he intruded. Erend had seen Aloy's fingers reaching for her Focus, the dreamy eyes that weren't looking at the horizon. There had been a curious smile on her lips, so he had decided to wait. 

Varl wouldn't know, so he had approached, tapped her shoulder like someone banging on a door at midnight; Aloy wouldn't do anything but turn and give him her kind smile. That hug, though, _that_ he didn't imagine. Or that Aloy'd return it. It was a loose hug, a much worse hug than any she had given him since months ago. Breaking his arms so he couldn't hug again sounded like the right wish to have.

"Are you coming with us? The tribe needs you." The Brave side-eyeing him could only mean two things: to piss off. To piss off and make him watch as he marked territory.

"Maybe." Erend had wondered how it'd be to become invisible; turns out, it wasn't pleasant. It was the same that had led them to where they were, he and Aloy.

Varl chuckled and pushed her shoulder lightly, his head tilted. "I knew you'd say that." Aloy looked like she had after signing his house with those ancient glyphs. Shy, timid, nervous? He wasn't willing to find out.

"Dammit, Erend, wait!" But his pace was too slow, and he worried about her limp. Aloy always won, even when he was simply trying to walk fast. 

"Need help with your leg or something? That isn't a problem now that you've saved the world, right? Plenty of people would help." He wasn't looking at her, but at Varl waiting behind her. "Gladly."

Aloy turned. "Let's talk later." Varl paused before nodding and walking. Erend had resumed his slow pace, but he also stopped to sustain Varl's gaze. The competition was lost when the fight became a test about speed. Varl moved several steps ahead without much effort. His injuries weren't in his legs.

Others would think she was weak, distracted. The tribe's reaction could become a problem when they had plenty already. All the support in the world could've been too little. Keeping Erend in the dark was unjust, but she didn't want him to think the struggles they had gone through had been fruitless. They weren't, but she didn't know any other way.

Keeping his pace was making her struggle. He slowed down, "Hmm, touchy," she said. "I'll admit you've saved the world twice while I've done it only once, but I don't see how that justifies being an ass. Is it because you're Captain of Meridian’s Vanguard? It must be hard finding time to talk to people like me. Being that important and all." 

Scoff, eyes going blank, Erend resisting the urge to escape. "Twice my ass. I figured he was about to kneel or something? You now, Nora stuff." 

"The Mad Sun-King, now HADES. That's two. And if I have to have people kneel in front of me, I'd rather have it your way. It's more...pleasurable." 

Erend's jaw moved as he pushed his tongue against his cheek in resignation. She tried to smile when he finally glared at her, but it faded quickly. He had followed her eyes as she checked that Varl was distant enough before grabbing his hand. He grunted sourly before pulling away. "Did you forget or what? People will se-" 

Aloy looked around after him. Some people had managed to reach the top to help clean the path down. "Everyone was risking their life. I didn't want them to think I prized yours more. Even if sort of do?" 

It was so gradual she felt like shaking it out from him, but finally, his eyebrow bent parallel to the right corner of his mouth. "Sort of?" He sighed twice in a row. Their hands bumped as they crossed the space in awkward silence. 

"So....can we talk about that thing you have about me being happy that you're alive? Because you don't actually have to try to die, we can...roleplay?" 

"Oh, _that_...packed a punch?" Aloy waited. The high-pitched welcome he had given her painted his face red. "Sona's ears are still ringing. She thinks it's from the fight, don't worry." 

"Steel to my soul, I thought you were dead!"

"_Steel to my soul?_" Erend exhaled. His lip curled as she held his gaze, unyielding.

"Ha? It's emotional, _right_, but I barely kept my cool there. I would have bawled my eyes out if Varl wasn't so..._stuck_." 

"Bet you were sobbing inside."

"How did you know? I almost peed myself." Aloy pushed him gently. "What? I love you that much." He looked at her sideways, hesitating, as if it were not yet safe to move forward again. She smiled, making each tooth point in the right direction. 

"Erend...I'm so sorry." 

It wasn't the answer he was expecting. Erend turned, wishing he hadn't for a second: the top of the mesa where the richer lived had received lesser damage. Meridian Village looked like a forge, the elevators had shattered. The direction of Aloy's gaze made sense then. It was too far to assess the damage, but it had to be: his house had to be part of the black speckles floating in the air. Ersa's things too. What little they had built in the past two years had joined her in becoming ashes. 

The blow grew into nothingness when he felt the weight of Aloy's hand pulling his shirt. He was too tired to think, too exhausted to care, too happy to allow any other sentiment turn their moment somber. Erend put the best of his smiles and craned his head to the side. "I've been fantasizing about soft pillows and warm beddings for days. Now I don't even have a bed. You sure about me?" 

"It's up to you, but I happen to be usurping one; there's no vigorous breakfast, but the bed is big enough..." She paused. "For the two of us. And it's mostly free. Just...stick with the kneeling schedule.”

"So lose my hair or my sleep. Tough decision." 

Her eyes were all over his face as she moved next to him, washing him with worry. He saw them reflect the fire. "It's not like you have that much, but I wouldn't worry too much anyway. Bet we won't be sleeping anytime soon."

Saying what she had never heard before was becoming too easy when Erend felt like looking at her messed up with his breathing. "Damn right."

* * *

"We don't need help." Sona was a wall. Her injuries hadn't stopped her from putting an end to the Nora's adventure around tainted lands as soon as possible, and it required a stop in the palace. 

Aloy was disappointed, but above all, she was _tired_. "The tribe needs help." 

She was pacing around the terrace while Avad, Marad, the Nora, and Erend's eyes stalked her steps. Getting down the Alight had been tough. Even she had had a difficult time making certain leaps around the destroyed rocks. The carnage began directing the little energy they had left when as soon as they put a foot in what was left of Meridian Village: Erend had to command, she had to help. What better time than then to be summoned to the palace? The endless line in front of the only working elevator extinguished any remaining patience. 

Avad insisted. "Is there anything we can do to ease your concerns? I understand fully. Sharing your food with us after...what my father did is too much to ask. But that is why I can't help but keep trying." The Sun-King's gesticulations only hardened Sona's eyes, but it didn't stop him. "We want to help, as you helped us." 

"We came here to defeat a Metal Devil. The Metal Devil was finished. Now we must go."

Varl took a step forward when the tension heightened. Sona nodded. His hand made a semi-circle in the air. ”We need the help, _all_ the help.” He turned to look straight at her. ”It'll work if you come with us, Aloy. The Carja won't attack us if you're with us, and the Matriarchs would be happy to have you lead them. Everyone would." 

Erend's low grunt mimicked the way her thoughts would have sounded if she had spoken them. Varl was threading finely, so his idea resonated in most of the heads gathered in the terrace. Avad studied her face before exchanging a silent understanding with Marad. The counselor was the first to intervene. "We'll be sad to let you go, but Meridian will rise and wait for your return, Aloy." 

The beef between Erend and Varl could be smelt, seen, and tasted from miles away. Varl moved even closer to where she was. " I'm ready. To go inside the mountain with you, if the Goddess wants me to." His shoulders puffed as he shifted his gaze back to where Erend was. "Like you wanted me to." 

Sona looked as confused as Avad and Marad. The few Nora behind her looked at each other as their murmurs filled the background. Aloy caught a glimpse of Erend's expression. Pain, disappointment? Anger? But then he frowned, his shoulders drooped. He took a step back and looked to the side. She knew the expression splitting his face when his tongue made a click. Varl looked satisfied, and her reasons to keep her temper controlled were all gone. "Fine. I'll be there. In a month." 

Everyone would know, eventually. And that meant days, maybe hours. They kept acting as if they could control her with their condescending idiocies. Erend’s pits were clamping his hands as tight as his lips were, but that was nothing for her strength. Having used too much of it made things look clumsy: his hand was in her hand, none of them had faltered. Not yet, at least.

Everyone else looked as if a Stalker had turned visible right then in front of their eyes. Marad looked unaffected, but she had seen his features twitch for a brief moment. Avad's arms had fallen to his sides as slow as the sun gave in to sleep. Sona was as impassible as ever, but that added frowning could only mean _Anointed_ and _outlande_r didn't sound like it'd make a good story. The small group of Nora was wan. Varl was the only one who looked agitated: their fingers would be smoke and charred skin if he had been a Ravager; he already had the looks. 

Sona reacted to the direction of Aloy's voice growing through the room. "You can leave now, but the Eclipse just lost their leader. Going back to the Embrace will be more dangerous than it was already. No one doubts your determination, but you need to rest." 

Erend squeezed her fingers as if he was trying to make sure that they were _there_. His cheeks looked like a bad case of excessive Carja makeup. Aloy feared too much dawn-tinted powder would fly from his chops to hers and make her cheeks break with the weight when their eyes finally met. 

"You're right, Aloy." Avad nodded at her with the confidence of someone about to assume the lead. "We shall discuss this further tomorrow, both of you must be tired as well." His back faced them as he stepped in front of the Nora, and everyone read the meaning of him standing next to Sona. "We'll begin preparing for your departure." 

Sona's laconic nodding ended the gathering. Varl's expression was rigid, but he didn't spare a look at them before chasing the warchief's moves. The rest of the crowd didn't bow, for once. Their steps pealed against the tiles of the terrace as they rushed to help the warchief walk. Sona was moving incredibly fast for her wounds. Erend grew two inches when Avad turned to them.

"Thank you, my friends. We'll meet again when you're well-rested." That Avad had different sides wasn't new; that sly smile was. Marad dipped before following him out of the terrace.

Erend was sure they were coming, the judgments. Varl would turn and jump on him anytime, the men and woman under his command would make him pay for tainting their Anointed. The worry about Avad cutting his salary in half was milder. He wouldn't do that, would he? He had spent the last minutes assessing how many escape routes they had considering their injuries. But they were alone, or as alone as one could be in the palace. The sunlight was orange-tinted, the greenness was the same in the distance. Everything was the usual if he held his breath: the wreck was only a smell there. Aloy, instead, looked like the last survivor of their particular conflict.

"One month? I thought you'd be leaving with them." His gloves hadn't helped: her grip was smashing, and she wasn't relaxing it. It grew stronger when he looked at her.

"Letting outcasts in, seekers going back after seeing...well, Meridian? I'd have to go now if Avad hadn't offered help. It'll be less messy if I get there after they figure out the basics. Hopefully." 

Erend feared they'd try to suck her in now, in a month, or forever, but letting things rest might help. Thinking wasn't as feasible when it meant doing it about them, so he tried a half-joke. "So...can I kiss you now? Outside?" 

"Don't get ahead of yourself." The redness on her cheeks was mighty. She'd get a tan with that much glow.

"Right." 

His senses were too sharp after that wash of adrenaline, so her grunt sounded deeper than HADES' tantrums in his ears. "Maybe. I don't know." 

The soil dirtying her cheeks was on his lips when they began strolling to Olin's house. It was impossible not to notice how things had changed and how they were the same: the attack had left scars all over Meridian, but they were still holding hands, somehow. Aloy was next to him, and now her hand wasn't wondering why it was there, but rubbing his fingers, not wanting to let go. The rushed trust they had felt should've been a delusion. Who fell in love after only one week? After only one day? When had he? Perhaps in all those months they hadn't seen each other. The small alley in front of Olin's was a new path. Erend wasn't fearful of making the first page of his new beginning, and Aloy couldn't complain when he kissed her: that corridor was always empty.

* * *

"Hey, red, how was your day?" He'd kiss her as if she hadn't just arrived, but about to leave. 

Expecting and welcoming the other felt rusty the first days, and soon the impatience began consuming Aloy's afternoons. It was fresh, having someone to discuss the Cauldron's logs; ponder about what HEPHAESTUS' next move might be. Erend's questions didn't mind his eyes getting wet and sleepy, and he'd always push through his yawns to extend their time together. 

The capital was cramped: survivors would sleep on the streets, the debris made it difficult to get anywhere. She'd meet Erend here and there: remnants of Shadow Carja would make them raise their weapons together. Sometimes it'd be a call for help, to confirm that there weren't more corpses underneath some ruins. They had stopped finding living trapped people after the first days. The chaos made him busier than usual, the people in need consumed her hours.

Their secret meetings kept spreading: the empty and dark alleys of Meridian. The wilderness, after they returned from tackling this or that threat; their bodies rushing with adrenaline - they'd simply hush the other when things got too loud. She had taken her time to tell him. He asked as the spoon waved in his hands. "Any luck with that book?”

"Same old superstitions." 

"I might have something better." He paused, reluctant. "I wouldn't get too excited. It hadn't worked. Not even _once_."

"I still appreciate it." He'd smile with sorrow in those moments: he'd bring her a new book about the Forbidden West. A new rumor. Meridian wasn't short of people who swore to have strayed past the border. He tracked most of them, then stayed behind her while she made questions, both knowing most were liars except a few. One hunter who had dared, but had rebounded after a few days. A merchant that traded close to the edge. "Well?"

"There's a Kestrel among the refugees, heard me asking about the Forbidden West. Told he spent a long time in the Kestrel's Perch in Blazon Arch. Most travelers coming from the west would end there, asking for help. Or so he claims. He was...inclined to share."

For a small fortune, but Aloy didn't have to know that. He had begun remembering all the weird names: Elysium was "miles away" from GAIA Prime, but for some reason, she had decided to find it and go west. It could be north, to the Claim, but no. It had to be west: the one the Carja feared. The place he knew nothing about, not enough to help her prepare. The reason -the real one- flew from the Focus to his ears one night.

"Curious, willful, and unstoppable?" Her eyes had looked huge; her hands were strangling his thighs. "Sounds like someone I know." He knew she'd smile like that, but it always made him jealous. Aloy reserved her best smiles for her mother. He had stopped asking if she was listening to that GAIA log after a few days. She kept it on loop, trying to find a clue that wasn't there. 

Elisabet Sobeck's home couldn't be far - she didn't know how long the power cells of her armor would last, but the environment must have made the suit work. Travis Tate had wished her to have happy trails when they said goodbye. It could be a saying, but maybe she had made the trek on foot. Finding more about GAIA would take her west anyway, or so they assumed; searching for her mother wouldn't be in vain in any case. The traces were so few he couldn't blame her for holding to the little things.

The setbacks would make her wonder if she wasn't supposed to find her. He'd fight back: if someone deserved it, it was her. Erend hoped there was something to discover every day. Someone had to know something, so he kept hunting. Living together terrified him. Was Aloy feeling obliged to have him there? Meridian wasn't in the best moment to go house hunting, and they barely had time to bathe, eat. Recharge his spirit while cuddling with her at night. Their time together will disappear if he moved elsewhere. But sharing their lives like that would accelerate it - they'd get closer, or begin hating each other. 

Interacting outside was awkward: getting his head around the idea of Aloy kissing or hugging him had taken months. He still couldn't believe it, even if they did it every day. But something in how she was with others begun feeling unfamiliar. She had been like that with him; she still was, if they weren't alone. His concept of Aloy would be unrecognizable for most: he'd imagine her loosening her braids after a long day. Relaxing each muscle, including the one that kept her smile and words restrained during the day, when they weren't alone. She was the arms that'd open and hug him when he laid on their bed. It hadn't felt weird when he slipped one day, after many days.

He had told her he couldn't wait for the day to end and go home. She had nodded as if it was what had always been.

* * *

It turned into a game at some point. Aloy noticed when some of the blue beads she kept losing everywhere appeared on his hammer. He couldn't add them to the handle pad, fearing he'd smash them, so threading them in the leather strip that decorated the crest was the best solution. His hammer was all brown, so the contrast made them pop. He was pretty happy with the result. Adding them to his armor took some thinking. He expected them to loosen or get damaged fast, but they hadn't. He had hung then from the cords of his vest, where they'll avoid the majority of blows. The friction worried him, but he liked the fact he could touch them with ease.

"More? Haven't you gotten enough jokes from your men?" 

"My men aren't warming my bed at night. So, can you make it smaller?" 

They ended like that most nights: he'd open his legs, Aloy would relax leaning on him. He'd smell her hair, massage her always-stiff shoulders before returning to stroke as much of her skin as writing reports let him. She'd write more of that stuff she was working in with the Lodge. She hadn't left on time to reach the Embrace in a month. 

"I thought you had finished? With the machine archive?" The question had begun controlling his life.

"Mostly. The archivist wants me to check everything before they sew the pages. _Again_." 

"Hm, Carja being Carja. Have they kept discussing the Snapmaw thing?" Aloy snorted, and he knew he had pressed the right button to distract her from her writing.

"They captured one, apparently not without injuries from both sides. Let's hope they keep at it." She had asked him a hundred times. The Alphas wanted to share APOLLO with the world, so should she share what she had found? What made her able to hunt, tame machines? But what if it turned out wrong, like the Eclipse using the Focuses? Sharing the terraforming functions of the machines had caused an uproar all over Meridian. She couldn't explain why she knew about it, only what they did. It wouldn't appease HEPHAESTUS, but Erend had stopped trying to hunt machines unless they were too close to the crops or the people. 

Particularly Grazers. She had grown using Grazer dummies, so they reminded her of Rost. "So they can prove you're right?" 

"So they can see they're dumb." 

"Fair." Erend laid back, enjoying the view and feeling each second pass. He leaned on her shoulder and shook his hand in front of her eyes, making them follow the blue bead moving inside his fingers. "So, can you make it smaller?" 

He had found the perfect hoop: made of steel, thin, simple; the only thing missing on it was one of her blue beads. "They're made of wood."

Aloy inspected the bead with critical eyes. Rost had shown her how to make them with the unused ridge-wood from making arrows. They'd crack or get lost often, and there wasn't much to do in all those lonely nights. 

"That's why. You can, right?"

"Are you dumb too? It's not steel." She turned, only to confirm that Erend didn't look convinced enough. "It'd be so small it'll rot if you wet it, or break with ease." They would last longer in his ear than in her hair, at least the bead would move a lot less. But Aloy wasn't encouraging him. 

"You'll have to come back before that then. Sounds like a deal to me? Just...come back before I lose my ear?" 

He was smiling, but she had seen Erend's throat move as he gulped. Aloy never knew what to say. He'd never press too much, but the spare tries to establish dates were uncomfortable anyway. She didn't know for how long she'd have to stay in the Embrace, but his worry went further. How was life going to be after she left for good? Would she come back, and when? He had joked about going with her. She wouldn't be able to leave him alone if it didn't work, she didn't know where she was going anyway. They'd be stuck, he'd be unhappy, she'd have to stop, and she couldn't. 

"But...why?" Her beads were so artless. She did them for herself, so she didn't mind the angles from the knife, or if the blue wasn't all that uniform. 

"Because it's yours. Would it take long?" His eyes lengthened after his brows stirred into a straight line. The slight scar above his right ear. How big or small where the pores in each portion of his face. The direction in which his hairs grew around his jaw. Aloy kept discovering things when she stared at him like that; when she stared at him that long.

It was so easy for him that it made her resentful. She hadn't even said it once: he'd kiss her forehead every morning, say he loved her sometimes. He had asked her not to say it, but the times he had expected her to reply back took her confusion to paralysis. Every defeat built the pressure: it'd mean more after ten days and even more after fifteen. "Me too" felt more and more massive with each day, and Erend couldn't stop feeding it. 

"Damn!" Another splinter had pierced her skin. There were more than a dozen beads in front of her: they were too big, too tiny, not smooth enough. The next day had come, Erend had left in the morning. She had sat in the middle of the living room until there wasn't any ridge-wood left before starting with the wood scraps of Olin's vault. 

The new wood was tougher to work, and the beads had to be _so small_. Aloy didn't stop until the spheres began feeling smooth. Smooth enough for him to wear. The tint looked almost black by afternoon, and the beads were on it when Erend spotted the vase over the table right to their bed as he began undressing.

"You made so many." He shook the bowl, smiling as the dots began moving in the liquid. The masked disappointment connected her thoughts like thunder. Erend lifted his arms, and she hugged his back after throwing his shirt to the bed.

"I just...did them out of habit." She hadn't considered the quantity before tossing them all in the tint. She never did. Erend's stomach grew a few inches under her hands as he inhaled. "Doubt they'll last long anyway."

"You bet. Losing them fast will be so much work." He sat on the table and turned. She didn't know how it happened, but she had stopped doubting before touching him first. Before touching him at all.

Erend put two fingers on the inner corners of his eyes and slid them to his temples. "Look...we have a problem. A big one?" Aloy waited, ready to take the blow. "You haven't pierced an ear before, have you?" 

"What?" 

"Have you seen my woman? She's stunning. I can't look any worse than this." She had to gulp before smacking his arm. Her stomach kept fluttering with the strangest things.

* * *

"Happy to be done? You've been working on this so long." A thick block of parchment was on his lap while Aloy looked at it with too much intent. He didn't know how she had managed to write that much in such little time.

"Read what I tell you to." She had come upstairs, climbed on the bed, and let the hunk fall on him. "You can read the rest when I'm gone..._only_ then." 

"Okay?" She kept looking at him, so he examined the first page. "That's our names in...old one's glyphs? How are you planning they read this?"

The jealousy hit as soon as he recognized the pattern of lines. They were the same that had tortured him for months in his house. They felt so far, those times, with Aloy wearing only his shirt while her loose hair fell on her shoulders. It had been a month and almost two weeks. She hadn't left yet, hadn't mentioned it. But she had invited Varl to the mountain before telling him a single shred of everything that took her away from the present. Sharing something that was only theirs with Talanah did not make him feel any better.

Was it to show her something about the machines? What was the reason they’d need that at the Hunter’s Lodge? She had spent endless hours writing, so many he had stopped complaining about not having her body around until late most nights. There was nothing like sleeping with his hand trapped in her groins. Her face had lighted up after his question, so Erend did his best to smile.

"You asked how I read glyphs, months ago," Aloy said. "Remember? In the...basement?"

"The rejection is more vivid..." He winked and pointed to the triangle on her temple. "But yeah, your Focus does it for you. So?"

"I don't know why it _can_ translate them but _not_ change the interface to Carja's glyphs, so... you'll have to learn."

"Learn?" She nodded and followed his invitation to sit on top of him. Her arms surrounded his neck, his wrists her waist. Erend leaned on the cushions behind his back. 

"You could also spend ages connecting sounds to floating lights and figure them out on your own...but who has the time for that." Aloy grabbed the papers and pulled one before shoving it in his chest. "Look."

The sheet had Carja and what looked like old glyphs in parallel columns. Aloy was looking at him with fire, so he frowned and tried to pinch a solution from the black lines. His eyes skimmed his name in old glyphs at the top of the page. Finding the symbols on one side of the columns took some seconds. "So...they sound the same?" 

A grin that broad could only mean he was right. "Mostly. The Focus had some trouble translating a few words from the books you lent me because of that, but it learns the more I read..."

They ended up lazing in the bed while she showed him how to transcribe words from one set of glyphs to the other. Her fingers were all black from the ink, her cheeks covered in faint black lines. He was trying to rub off one when she noticed him sigh. "It's a hassle," she said. "You don't have t-" 

"I'm glad." He liked it when she did that: she'd fold her arms and wiggle until everything of her fit inside of him. Her eyes would ask why he hadn't embraced her yet. He'd wait just to see that look. "We have to speak the same language, you know? I like talking to you." The past drew her with a force he couldn't beat. The only answer was letting it drag him with her.

"It's your idea."

"Then it must be bad."

She'd still grunt when he joked like that. ”I just hope you stop repeating Elisabet didn't do it all alone." She paused, letting her eyes drift and cover the expanse of the ceiling. "There are a lot of Focuses inside All-Mother's mountain. I hope they work." 

"Focuses?" He had to move to put her face at the same height as his. She was nodding. "So...you want me to learn this...?"

"I don't know how yet. But if Sylens did it, I can." 

They sat, surprised at the other's thoughts. "Know what?"

"To make them talk. Through distances. I only know it's called a _network_."

"You're saying...we could...we could talk? While you're away?" 

There was too much hope in his voice, but her grin wasn't missing a good chunk of it. "I guess. I'm traveling far this time, so I'll be more centered if I know nothing's going around here. GAIA Prime is here, HEPHAESTUS is angry and loos-" 

"By the forge, you can't just say you'll miss me, can you?" 

"That too. Maybe." It kept expanding beyond and beyond, his love. The one he feared the most. So he kissed her while he still could, and stopped before they got too distracted.

He couldn't wait to begin practicing. "So, I repeat the symbols...over and over? I know you said as many as I could, but how many times are we talking about?"

She tried to move to fetch the ink, but he couldn't resist, either. He had to finish that kiss.

* * *

"It'll work. Maybe too well?" 

"You think I shouldn't?" Her index stopped. Erend weighted his words while looking at the blue paste around her fingertip. 

"I just don't know how serious it is? It's a family mark, right? But with the Nora, you never know, and I mean you too."

"Who says I'm like other Nora?" 

"Damn, Aloy. What I..." He turned, her eyes were arrows. "What if things go...sour? You're still sore about how they treated Rost; I'd be too, but a Death-Seeker mark?" Erend hoped he had gotten the name right. 

"I don't want them to forget Rost was the one who-"

"Was your father." She had called him her father once, and it hadn't taken a second before she corrected herself. So Erend had kept insisting, and she kept startling every time he said the words. Mother. Father. 

Her finger returned to her temple. "Why don't you have one? A family mark. Most Oseram do."

He arranged his shirt under the waistband. "Uh, they're not family marks...clans tend to get similar patterns. You can guess where's someone from, or if they survived this or that from the marks they wear, or their craft. Many wear them because they hurt? Gotta look tough.” He stopped to smirk at her. ”_We're Oseram_." 

Aloy closed the ornated tin that held the paste made with the same flowers that tinged her beads; it'd dry and crumble on her temples in minutes, making her skin feel grainy. She'd let him wash her face at night, so he didn't mind. Erend had found as many things to do with her than things to do to her. Rubbing a warm damp towel on her dozy face and watch her eyes go blank was the newest. Coating her hair in everything he could find never got old. She had complained about the knots one day; he had seen a lot of women buying a jar of something in the market another. 

Aloy was Aloy, so he hadn't stopped after her grumbles when he tried to put the paste on her hair the first day. But she asked -reluctantly- if he was going to do it again the next bath. And the next one, and the following. She'd hum while he put it on her scalp. The vapors and the heated water would make him as relaxed as viewing her naked back trapped in his legs. Seeing the drops scatter around her skin while they had sex made the day a perfect day. 

"Then why don't you have one?"r   
  
"Ersa wanted us to get our clan's mark. But we're not exactly in a position to flaunt, are we? Well...we weren't. We fought about it once a year, at least? I almost got one when I was younger, but it felt wrong to do it without her." Erend grabbed Aloy's leg shieldings and held them so she could pick them with ease. "I would've done it, if I...you know, she'd be gone so soon. She'd have liked it, and I'd have gotten marked the same than someone I care about; doubt that'll happen now." 

"We could get one." Aloy extended her arm to let Erend tie the machine pieces over her wrists. 

"Rost's mark?" The regret broke his face: one eye opened more than the other, one lip showed more panic. Even his ears seemed to move after turning red from the shame. "Forget that."

What face had she put? "No, it's...you didn't know hi-"

"I know." 

He wouldn't let her turn off the lights. They would meet at the end of the night in their bed to become a pair of arms that squeezed each other. Sometimes they were already there, naked and sweaty, gulping down air after having sex and before changing the one in the room to a fresh and cozy one. 

She wanted to see him, so the lights were always on while he caressed her. There were nights when the Captain of the Vanguard had to show up between midnight and dawn. On those nights she would wait with the lights on to bother her sleep.

The_ tun, tun, tun _ of steel trying not to wake her up as it fell on the couch made her eyes open. He would lumber through the stairs. She would sit at the edge of the bed, her feet dangling, knowing there would be no pause between the last step and the space between her legs for his feet. 

Erend would let himself fall even if behind them there wasn't a bed but a cliff; she would grab him, holding on to all his weariness. And yet he wouldn't let her turn off the lights. He didn't take his clothes off half the time, but he always went from lamp to lamp ignoring her when she said she wanted to do it. He'd kiss her when he lay in bed and she'd swallow her anger.

Staying on Meridian hadn’t meant she could see him. The first week they were so busy that any moment together felt like something they shouldn’t, but it didn't take long for it to become evident. Hers was a desire, his was a duty. No one expected her to go out at dawn to help anyone, even if she did so every time it was needed.

No one expected lengthy reports written with all the sweat that covered her in the day. No one thought that what she was doing was merely what she was supposed to do. Not even Erend, who avoided smiling too much when she pretended not to miss him as much as he said she did as she treated the sores on his hands and feet absurdly slowly. 

The days began to pass by in the hours they spent together, and the weeks grew from seven to two days. Before she knew it, she was avoiding leaving. Erend would huff and puff so much that his hair would waggle on his forehead when she mentioned the days it would take her to get to the Embrace. Besides, there was always something to do. Here or there, she could help. 

Maybe that's why "You'll miss me when you're gone and it’ll be too late" that he kept repeating, trying to make it sound like a joke, had made what had been difficult at first easy. Where Rost chastised her desires, Erend encouraged them, feeding them until standing up to kiss him when he came home was not ridiculous. Until reaching out to let him tie that leather cord hanging from her wrist was not stupid. Wanting to do everything - everything - with him because maybe there wouldn't be time later had become the only answer.

"Imagine Lansra's face when she sees the mark on my arm," Aloy said. He grinned and stood to pick up her quiver. Tiptoeing was too hard. "What if you regret? Getting Rost's mark." 

The words churned on his lips when he turned. "I don't think I would. Having that memory with you." She picked up the leather belt from his hand. "And I could always cover it. I like it, but it's a simple pattern. Adding lines wouldn't be difficult.” His eyes moved to the ceiling. ”We could get something different."

She turned, trying to evade a sudden stare catching her goofy smile. "Or the same. If you want."

New lovers, getting the same marks. Finding they hated each other after a few months. It was so stupid that the Oseram had specific jokes about that. And yet Erend only agreed. Did she know what it meant for him? And could he be responsible for what it meant for her? "A Death-Seeker mark...that means Varl will hate me even more?" 

"That means every Nora will."

"And here I was, thinking I didn't need any more reasons to like the idea." Aloy pushed him with her hips as she finished tying a piece of silk around them.

"Where do we go?"

"Uh?"

"To get marked. I thought you'd know?"

"Now?"

"We don't have a lot of time left. Think Avad would mind it? He said to ask him anything we need." The hardships would be worse, the better they were together. It hurt already and they hadn't begun. She hadn't left.

"You know it hurts, right? They hammer charcoal. On your skin. For hours." 

"That sounds...Oseram. And like my type of torture, apparently."

**So good. **

She didn't want his hands around one day. Aloy's satisfied face as he came only with her mouth made Erend euphoric for days. Becoming the subject used to validate and explore her desire extended his delight for weeks. Being the only one who rode machines had to be the reason: being utterly defenseless against her hips bucking him was the thing that made her feel bold for the first time.

The sex had gotten so good since then that it maddened him: how would it be if she stayed another month? And five months? A year? He wouldn't know, maybe never. The pull was immediate: she let spit drip over his tip, her lips glid following its direction. Her tongue flapped inside her mouth. Her cheeks hollowed. Erend felt the pressure pull the skin of his cock up and down, then pleasure when she drove him deep in her throat.

It’d be perfect any other day, but he couldn't stop noticing more the moments when she stopped to breathe. 

He called her face and didn't care when she grumbled. That couldn't be called a kiss, but nothing he could do with her lips or her neck felt convincing. Entering her calmed him; their hips spoke love. It didn't last.

Aloy rolled to the top grudgingly. He knew she was waiting for his hands to run from her neck to her thighs. He finally breathed, watching her breasts bounce and get caught in her arms. But he couldn't decide between recreating on the view or helping. Erend sat.

"_Stop_ moving." Her hand could've made a hole through his chest if Aloy had been slightly more annoyed at the continuous changes. The bed creaked with the rolls of her hips. Why was the squeak so constant? Her features snarled when he asked her to turn around and show him her back. 

She teased him now.

A hand grabbed the base of his cock, she turned over his tip, made her clit and his shaft meet. Her hair reached her ass when he threaded it around his fingers and made her head tilt back with too much force. Listening to her moans without looking at her face almost made it. Her heels touched his hips, squeezing her toes was a silent call. 

Aloy ignored him, bending more instead. As if to let him know exactly where his cock was getting sunk in. Her ass thumped against his hipbones, his rage cleared. 

_It almost did it_. It almost did it the past nights too: the ache would mute under the sheets while he found new ways to own her body. The remedy never lasted long, so he had begun feeling feverish if too much time passed. Erend hadn't known what to do when love turned into devotion, except give in.

He didn't feel like being in someone else's house anymore. Above the table, every furniture, against each door. From every angle and form he could imagine: there wasn't a corner in that house where he hadn't had her. There wasn't a moment when he wasn't thinking about it, not in the last days.

The thing that always remained unchanged was the one he most wanted to possess. He felt wicked, but not that morning: that day, he wished he hadn't been sure she'd find a way to break free. Licking every pore on Aloy’s skin didn't feel as good when he imagined cuffs imprisoning her limbs. 

Aloy snapped when Erend pushed her forward and kneeled behind her, "What's wrong?" There wasn't hiding it: the worry about what to take and what to keep in Meridian. The excitement after having stayed for so long that part of help couldn't stop feeling. Aloy had intended to leave after three weeks, not a month.

And _twenty-one_ days. 

Finding trouble at being outspoken for the first time lasted until the day before. That morning, actually: she was leaving tomorrow. Erend had left the breakfast on the table, returned before midday. Said he didn't have to go back. He broke part of her armor while undressing her the first time.

They had eaten in hateful silence. Counting the minutes managed to bring then closer. She had tried to escape before it was too late. She had said it in front of everyone.

_She was leaving._

She had told him many times, so why was he making her feel sorry? As if it didn't trouble her too. Repressing the voice that agonized about getting soft hadn't been simple. Including Erend in the things she had to learn to accept as uncertain was as painful.

"_You_ stay put,” he said, "Open." Their sex counted stories sometimes. The story that day could only be as frantic as full of bitterness. They hurt the other the closer they get. Erend's hands got trapped between her thighs and hips when he strung her on his cock. There was an ache on her lower abdomen: Aloy dipped her hips to drown in how inside he was.

"I can't." The anger tainted his face for a second, "But _I am_ coming back." He hid it, but his body couldn't. 

She didn't mind the roughness when it meant his hands were that desirous. Her shoulders burned from taking the force of his thrusts. One more slap of his hips and they gave out: Erend groaned when her hair slipped from his fingers. He put his hand where it had been, then crushed his palm against her ear. Doing the same with her head against the mattress was the last step. 

"Yeah?" He spanked her so hard she could hear her skin sizzling. Locking eyes meant different things at that time, as it did every time their bodies met with lust and veiled dominance. 

One of the two would have to yield: Erend penetrated her like it'd be the last time he'd get to own her; Aloy fought to prove he was wrong. 

"_Yeah_." His answer was a furious lunge. Gripping the border of the bed was the only thing keeping her from falling. He blew before moving back on his knees to the other side of the bed and grabbing her ankles. Then he pulled. He was spreading her legs open before her body stopped sliding through the sheets. The bed slapped her stomach as firmly as his cock did on her clitoris.

Her spine got squeezed when his fingers grabbed her neck without choking. Aloy felt the grip increase when his glans parted her lips. Even the tip was so hard. Erend used it to smear her wetness and pat her slit until she moaned. She'd try to convince him to ram her by swinging her ass. He kept making circles against her entrance without going all the way in. 

A simple hair tug made their eyes meet again, "I wonder why." 

Both knew. 

Aloy jostled for control, but Erend moved his hand to her back and pinned her to the bed. How much harder would his hips rock if she leered at him? How could she fight back when just the confidence of his hands made her legs feel like sand crumbling? 

But she hadn't gotten there by giving up, "I should've told you earlier. _That I'm leaving_." Her neck and hair became a handle. The pressure of his arm wasn't needed to keep her in place when he lifted one knee and hunched over her. There was nothing but skin and muscle in her glutes, but he managed to grab them and make them seem malleable. 

Erend mounted her as if trying to make the bed shatter in thousands of woodchips. Touching herself with was hard until he submitted to her strained moans. His hands held her shoulders in place, and she couldn't help but notice the veins. Even his fingers looked strong.

Erend's physique made her feel as heated as his cock piercing her almost straight. Her lips were making splashing sounds with each push, so the stop of his thumb between them was brief. 

Aloy felt embarrassed, but her body asked for more when Erend’s rubbed it against her ass. His free hand moved to her mouth, then her tongue. As if he could extract the words he wanted from her throat.

Being touched and pounded wherever she felt pleasure. Having Erend inside every one of her holes. He had told her it was his favorite way to make her come. Her body agreed. 

Aloy couldn't say _what_ was making her feel _that_, but the sensations drove her knees into the bed. Her body shuddered until the muscles on her legs felt about to cramp. Erend’s blasts became harsher when the orgasm made her hips rigid. Her body couldn't be strong enough to resist that much force. Erend only stopped when she screamed.

The room grew brighter; her throat was dry. Aloy still felt disoriented when Erend crossed her arms behind her back and raised her to his chest. Her insides begun feeling sore as their hands ravaged skin. It made her crave the soothing of his cum more. 

His climax painted a path on her body: he grunted while fondling her breasts and nipples. His palms bent her violently and rubbed her waist with the slow cadence of his last pushes. They became a warm caress on her lower back, then loving touches on her ass and legs. 

The sheets made a muffled thud as he fell next to her; she let her head follow the same arch and rest in the opposite direction. Her entrance kept throbbing long after his breathing grazed her toes. Aloy opened her eyes after a while. The skin around his cock was all reddish. Her ass looked the same, probably. There were tracks of his fingers all over her body.

Her ribs would gain and lose definition while she panted. Aloy's words sounded labored, "I'm exhausted." Erend could see the whitish mix of their fluids dripping from her entrance. Her hips stirred as he began spreading it, moving his fingers up and down her slit **with affection**.

"I took the day off tomorrow, so brace yourself." She moved her head on top of his crossed ankles and ogled him. Her lips requested the hand resting on his stomach, so he grabbed her palm. Their fingers addressed a pain they were trying to ignore, "Unless you're leaving at dawn or something."

"Later sounds good. So...you won't wait for me." 

"_What?_"

Her shrug was a shoulder bumping his foot, "You hadn't said anything. _At all_. Better for me, I guess. Surviving is hard enough without having to worry about you." 

She had no right to be frustrating after having dropped that Freezing Bomb in the morning. They didn't have time to fight, "By the forge, where would I go? Of course I'll wait. I'll be waiting even if you never come back."

"But I am."

"So I heard."

"Well...I thought you'd have something to say." She sat, and the furrow on her face made him lean on his elbow. Their breath hadn't recovered yet, so their words were broken. 

The creases grew as he pondered, but not as much as the rock squashing his chest, "Honestly, Aloy? I don't know. What can I say? I just hope you want to rest with me from time to time. I know you're busy, but even you can get worn someday. I'll just...wait."

Erend returned his head to the beddings to ignore her expression, "Why are you talking like we'll never see other again?" 

"I'm not." 

"_Oh?_ Is something else bothering you, then? _Anything_ you tell me stays between us." Sarcasm. Months of insecurities reduced to a pun.

"_Fire and spit_, someone around here worries _so much_ about me." The frustration was making his palm hurt his eyes. "Aloy...you're leaving, you want me to be what? _Eloquent?_" 

"People would call you an idiot if they heard you say that." She paused at his gawking. "And I'd pat them in the back because they'd be right. _Rest from time to time?_ That's a new low, trying to compete with the couch."

"Yeah, guess I should keep dinner warm since you'll be back _so soon_. Guess it'll work, one night. _Someday_." 

Her head hit his ankles again as she let if drop while exhaling, "It wouldn't be a bad welcome after surviving a month of _anointed torture_. Bet I'll be hungry. It's hard work." 

Erend's heart pounded at the date. She'd go help in the Embrace, stay there some weeks. Stop in Meridian before heading west. Aloy had avoided making estimates, even rough ones. "This time. You'll be back _this time_."

"This time...and every time." 

Promising was easy when it didn't take a lot of effort. There had been some fights, but there hadn't been any problems. The days together had been disgustingly _perfect_. 

"Varl won't run away after knowing everything. _I wish he would_, but he won't. And Talanah has a thing for you. Shit, half of Meridian does?" He gulped and regretted. "It's okay, wanting to try other things, you're...young.”

Giving up would be the gentlest then: before months or years of waiting for that time she'd return to stay. Erend was sure that he wouldn't stop expecting. He was as convinced that she'd meet somebody else before that moment came. 

"I guess that's it for us then. Simpler than I thought." 

He sighed, "Why do you alw-"

"I _know_ what I want. I don’t need you to decide for me." Erend looked at her as if the sureness in her voice smelt spoiled. 

"I' know, but you _can't_ know. That's the point." 

"I don't understand, we have this..._connection_, but you can't wait to get me out of your sight." 

"Yeah, that's _exactly_ what I want."

"Then stop acting so strange! Why are you telling me to...go to other people?" 

_To love other people_. Was he tired of her? Was he saying he'd be in a few months? They had talked frequently about what she'd do in the future. But not about what he'd do. Acting as if she wasn't alone anymore was hard when she couldn't believe it. Not all the time.

"Repairing GAIA is more important than anything...and you don't even how. I'm just saying it'll take time, Aloy! _Don't forget about me while you're out there, changing the world_. That's what I could expect then, that's what I can expect now. Anything else would be too greedy. That's all." 

Aloy hadn't wanted to give something she wasn't sure she could promise. But if Erend could wait without notice for months, she had to make every effort possible, "Four months. _At least_. I'll try to return before that. Maybe I won't be staying for long, bu-"

"I'd rather see you ten more days spread in a year than ten days less." 

His mouth demanded air when their staring got too long, "Me too."

There was nothing in the ceiling, but they kept looking. Aloy would worry. He could prevent that, "You shouldn't discriminate. You can't go loathing the Nora for adoring you but forcing _Erends_ to do it." 

"_Erends?_"

Four months, three times a year. He shouldn't have been happy, but how could he not, when it was more than nothing?

"Handsome faces, witty words, powerful strokes? I see you haven't heard of my tribe. We _only_ love _Aloys_. You seem like one?" 

"I'm not sure, are you? If you're mine, I don't share." 

When Aloy kept saying what he wanted to hear, even if it was merely innocence. "As long as you're mine."

"_Deal_." 

* * *

Only Aloy would say it using Old One's glyphs. And only Aloy would write it only once. His men startled when he shot out of his office, darting as fast as he could. The parchment with the equivalence between both sets of glyphs was lying next to the bed. 

It was dangerous, so he never took it with him; those lines were the only way to decipher what the rest said. Luckily, he hadn't burned them yet: there had to be something wrong. He checked it once, twice, and then again. "I love you_."_

The lines were the clumsy type. She had written it in the beginning, although Erend wasn't sure when that was. Her practice produced longer paragraphs, then sheets filled with messier but more confident calligraphy. He had spent days studying like a madman, transcribing pages he'd feed to the chimney until his hands hurt. The words weren't anywhere else but there, among descriptions of how the Focus worked, of how she used it. Alone, as if they didn't belong. As if she could only say it like she hadn't. A slip.

Erend's fears hadn't come true. Confusingly, the Nora had pretended not to notice the charcoal staining her skin as her scabs dried and healed completely. Leaving him hadn't made her want to try new things except one: running back to Meridian after only a few days. The same day she left. Every day. Not that she would.

The cold bit her bones even more after knowing what it was like taking a bath with Erend. Sleeping naked with Erend. It could be a mistake. She'd be late for nothing. The blue lights were still where they should. 

"Hey, CYAN." The lights shifted into vivid green. Aloy would have looked like a rainbow if her mood made her shift colors. "You sent the Chau file to my Focus, remember? Can you...can you _network_ with it?" 

"Welcome again, Aloy, I'm happy to see you. Certainly, I can, is there something else that you need?" 

It could work.

It had to.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Now you'll never know if I drew Erend's tattoo in the wrong arm or if he's cheesy enough to get Aloy's family mark in both arms *wink wink* So" hammering" stuff into the skin is a real thing! The instruments doing it on their skin are used in Maori traditional tattoos (Ta Moko). It's a pretty long and painful process. 
> 
> * Contraception. I didn't know what to say except "this weird tea that does wonders", so...I'd rather leave the method to your imagination. They are not worried, so your idea is wonderful :D 
> 
> And yes, Erend is all sad and alone again. And for the same reasons than always, sort of. Honestly, I pondered about using the same angst-structure of the entire fic vs. what I think would happen and went with the latter. Habits are hard to change, so I doubt Aloy would suddenly turn into a different person, plus I think in the Horizonverse this behavior would be more acceptable considering how hard it'd be to communicate. But we should do something about that, right? She's about to leave for the Forbidden West! ;)
> 
> Thanks for reading! :D


	12. The End

"It's possible, as long as there is a transmission medium to propagate the signal."

CYAN's words made sense sometimes. Aloy grunted when her shoulders shook again. The ashy walls of Ourea's retreat remained impassive to the fire. Aratak's visits were frequent, but not daily, and the place felt dead after long without someone warming its corners. Perhaps it was Ourea's absence, but the emptiness was ghastly.

Her fingers fumbled with a few extra pieces of dampened wood that would make too much smoke. The kindling made a faint noise as it thumped the flames; Aloy sighed when the wall of heat caught the skin of her palms. "Can you repeat that?"

"Topology. Network connections can have different arrangements. This topology, or arrangement of elements, determines the network's reach and capabilities."

CYAN's lack of stridency clashed with her occasional candid replies. Aloy weighted how much she could conjecture against trying to make the AI explain everything she wasn't understanding. A short detour wouldn’t change much. "Which one do I need?"

"You have talked about going far, Aloy. You will need a potent transmissor, enough to carry the signal through great distances."

"You can connect with my Focus now...because I'm here." Aloy shifted her attention to the purple triangles swirling under CYAN's hologram. The Focus had labeled them under two words: _ connection established _.

"Correct."

Another throb in her temples: he had risked everything to destroy that module. It had to mean something. "Tallnecks. Sylens...I know someone who made a network, and he used Tallnecks for that. They have..."The machine-like shapes painted on the walls cut her chain of thought; none of them had long necks. "A radar. They connect with my Focus when I override them."

CYAN shifted from blue to green. "Would you be comfortable sharing the data stored in your Focus, Aloy?"

"That's possible?" A message popped and shone against her fingers as she touched the right button: CYAN-CR01 was requesting access. Aloy waited while the Focus's interface displayed every folder and file being opened.

"Query: successful. I am fascinated with your technological sensibility, Aloy. Tallnecks are meant to work as switches and can cover very long ranges. Among other functions, they are equipped to make topographical scans, and to gather information about the machines employed in the terraforming system we discussed in your last visit."

"I was right? Can I use them to make a network?"

"Yes."

"And how do I make them do that? Transmit...the signal."

"I'll need further specifications about the network's architecture and physical topology to provide ins-"

"CYAN..." Aloy breathed into her palm, forcing her fingers against her temples and dragging her brows down. "I'm not sure if we're talking the same language at this point, because I only understood half." CYAN didn't look too happy to be interrupted, but she couldn't keep poking in the darkness. "But...I can learn."

She moved around the flickering sphere, noticing the temperature fluctuate the farther she got from the fire. "I want to make several Focuses talk. I want to check on you when I'm not around too, and... some good people would like to meet you. They could. If I give them Focuses, and I have them. Would you like that?"

"I would like it very much." Aloy couldn't help holding her hips, shaking her head with a smile. The languid flash of colors had slowed down to a warm rainbow in a second. CYAN was glistening in sunny, brilliant shades. "However, HEPHAESTUS is still a hazard for my integrity, I've got to be careful."

She was a lot easier to understand than humans. That sudden change of shade was fear. "The least I want is for you to endanger yourself or the Firebreak project."

"Thank you, Aloy." And that another one, trust. "How did you access the Tallneck's databases."

"You mean...overriding? I use a component from a Corruptor or a..." Aloy brushed her fingertip over the rugged metal of the Focus. "A FAS-ACA3 Scarab might sound more familiar. It's an old machine produced by Ted Faro."

The glyphs she had just read floated in front of her eyes. CYAN was examining the file about Corruptors she had found in Maker's End. "I'm sorry if my lack of data disappoints you. I was able to save Firebreak's logs before initiating the destruction of the comprised elements.” CYAN became silent for a few seconds. “You used the same component to access the Tallnecks' system than to recover control over the project."

"Yes! I don't know how it works, but...is it similar to what HEPHAESTUS did to you?"

"Correct. I must apologize, Aloy. While I pride myself on my efficiency, the imperative to maintain my location untraceable will affect my performance."

Could CYAN feel shame, and to what extent? Was black the only color she had to show it? "It's fine. I'm glad to have your help."

"Thank you. For the same reason, the network's integrity will be dependent on your autonomy to handle any unforeseen problems. To accomplish this, you'll need to receive comprehensive training. I am qualified to provide it."

Things had turned out better than expected. Aloy wrinkled her apprehension and forced herself to step on it. Erend would understand. "How long would it take?"

"Human learning is variable. My projection estimates a learning curve of 74 days, 14 hours, 33 minutes, 12 seconds. Enough time has been accounted for primary activities, including the acquisition of food, hygiene, and a proper rest routine. It could be longer, depending on your application."

More than two and a half months, three, counting the weeks she'd need to reach Meridian. The facility wasn't enticing, but Rost had explained how tough it'd be training for the Proving. She had said she'd do it, whatever it took. A few months was nothing in comparison. "It can be less, then."

* * *

"Destroy them! By the forge, break them!" Everyone was running in the opposite direction; Erend lost the count of bodies he had collided with after the fourth. A few curses helped nudge the pain when his foot landed oblique amidst the shouts and confusion.

He still had half of the bridge ahead when the closest guard understood his screams. The command traveled from mouth to mouth, surprising those who heard it: most people stood in awe under the entrance's carved arch when they reached Meridian, wondering how it closed. It didn't.

The strategy wasn't his own, but something he had learned in old Carja war stories: the bridge's wood boards began falling like leaves. Erend leaned on the closest handrail, trying to catch his breath and watching as more men moved and smashed the planks with whatever tool they owned.

It wasn't the first attack, but no other had been as virulent. 

Reports had begun spreading like the first drops when it rained: a single man, insisting that a friend had vanished pass the river bank. A lonely, drunk voice lamenting about having had to abandon goods meant for selling. Then a village had been hit, the Hunting Grounds began having trouble.

Meridian was still recovering from the Spire battle, and mostly, it'd mean the world they knew was ending. No one had paid attention at first. The Royal Guard had handled the disappearances, the Vanguard had gotten involved when they became murders. Inexplicable murders.

The bodies would appear nearby Meridian Village; rumors would say the dead were coming from the State or Cut-Cliffs. Trading routes weren't luckier: every single price had upped, and Meridian's nobles hadn't taken long before whining. Avad was drained.

He had been one of the first to run at it: a Grazer, running amok in front of the palace's bridge. There was only one person who controlled them, but Aloy's machines shone in blue, not purple. They didn't try to hunt humans, either.

Grazers may have been the tamest, but one, killing everything on sight, trapped within the intricate walls of Meridian? A few minutes were enough to make a massacre, and they always traveled in herds. It hadn’t taken him long to find out the rest were outside, in front of the bridge where those who couldn't afford a spot indoor traded. 

His stomach churned as he looked ahead: two smaller machines had been easy to handle, and several Grazers, Watchers, and Longlegs weren't anything his men couldn't control, but the exit paths were few. Some had managed to get to the bridge, seeking the city walls' protection; others had run toward Brightmarket. The rest ran too slow to escape.

Erend dashed and jumped to the battleground before the missing boards made it impossible. Then he felt the weight of too many bodies pushing him to the side as people cramped near the bridge, trying to escape from the center of the area. Sandals stepped on his head, a pair of hands gripped his armor. He had almost managed to stand when the first stunt-blast threw him back to the jumble. 

"You look like shit!"

"Guess I'm still charming with three broken ribs!" Talanah smiled like Aloy sometimes. Every cocky smile looked like hers, even from afar. The Sunhawk had brought reinforcements: the hunters running behind her dispersed, arrows flew. Erend fought as a Captain would, knowing the others would let him pass, then they'd follow. The machines had played the surprise card against an unprepared city. A bunch of them had nothing to do against the Vanguard and the world's best hunters.

"You did what you had to do." Talanah was walking towards him slowly, inhaling huge puffs of air as she examined the sweat dripping from his forehead.

"Right." The carnage didn't look pretty behind her back: lost limbs, injured bodies, rivers of dark, red blood. Working with the Lodge, the Royal Guards, and the craftsmen to develop better defenses had made them spend more time together.

Erend grunted when they began walking together and her steps became even slower to match his own. He wasn't sure, but the broken ribs might not have been a joke. A stream of hunters nodded to both as they moved to help the fallen. How long had it been since he had begun running? Twenty minutes? Less? More? It had ended without any celebration, in tired silence.

The Spire glowed in the distance. He feared more machines would appear, how many there'd be. Would things have been better if he hadn't ordered to cut pass to the bridge? Some men were already tying ropes around the gap to help those who could get to Meridian. Where would they go, if settlements stopped being safe?

"This is so absurd! Aloy would've brought the whole herd down by herself! Where is she?"

They had talked about it; he and Aloy. The subfunctions shouldn't have been able to hurt humans, the Old Ones had made it so. That's why the world still existed after GAIA's sacrifice; things had kept working, more or less. They seemed to be working less and less. The rage pooling in the corner's of Talanah's mouth made him stop dwelling in the past.

"I didn't know yesterday. Or the day before. Why would I know now?" Erend let the curved end of his hammer touch the sand and rubbed Aloy's beads against his will. If this was HEPHAESTUS, it was a mockery. Picking humans one by one sounded like a joke. A few Grazers, Watchers, and Longlegs couldn't bring a city down. Yet the panic was threatening to become unmanageable.

"Is that your pity face? Don't tell me Aloy fell for that." He sighed, she pushed her chest out and waggled an eyebrow. "She did something! She's probably fighting somewhere, and this is just the answer to her efforts!" Talanah stopped and clicked her tongue before joining the sighing. He hadn't tried to look pitiful, but she was looking at him as if he had. “Get a grip.”

Something must have happened for the machines to began attacking. Aloy was doing _something _, something that would justify her delay. Everyone said the same. Two fists below her waist, her feet aligned under her shoulders. Erend was too knowledgeable in mighty woman to try to argue back. Talanah scoffed like every time he tried to settle things with a tight grin.

"Not really encouraging, but thanks for trying."

He wasn't the only one with soon-to-be scars. Erend scanned her burnt skin, sure that it had to hurt. "Oseram's charm! Still can't see the appeal."

"Can't say I do. You're reporting to Avad, right? You said you'd do it next time, well, this is it." He needn't proof that the only one who had to limp was him. Talanah showed off anyway, leaving him behind her stormy steps. It had been a joke, but the weight of his breastplate was suffocating.

* * *

CYAN's voice made her Focus sound like a grater. "Should I recite another one of my favorite poems?"

"Hm...pick a shorter one?"

Talking from Son's Edge was a success, but it wasn't enough. CYAN never tired, literally, and slowly but relentlessly _electromagnetic waves, radiation, processing of signals_ and more began populating Aloy's everyday vocabulary. "In contrast to Ourea, you appear to be indifferent to art, Aloy.

"That's not true. I like music."

Anita Sandoval had used literature to test CYAN's emotional responses, but there was more. Encoding written and spoken data, interpreting it, then feeling. CYAN's path to emotions had involved thousands of hours of study: books, songs, holomovies, even older formats had fed her knowledge about feelings and shaped her conversational skills.

Aloy wondered frequently if CYAN was teaching her on purpose, but even if she wasn't, diving in that past had changed her. The data points felt like drops now. The Banuk painted too, the Carja wrote epics as well. She hadn't had the time to appreciate them before, she hadn't known there were more traces between the present and the past that smears of the ending.

"Should I play music instead?"

"No, I need to make out what you're saying." The clarity and tenure of CYAN's voice varied as the AI tweaked the network's underlying program. "I can't tell if there's any improvement. Your voice still sounds rasp, any change?" A hologram representing the states of the received signal strength during the connection began floating above the snow. "So...the same as yesterday. Time to add another Tallneck and see how our work stands, I guess."

The more cell sites the network used, the stronger and reliable it'd be. "Correct, Aloy. Will you be leaving now?"

She had gone down to an area where those seeking to trade crowded, hoping to find someone who could carry the message she had reluctantly written to Erend, hoping the old glyphs would be obscure enough for stranger's eyes and that he'd read them. But the machines had caused so many deaths recently that it had taken her weeks to find someone willing to go as far as Meridian.

The man to whom she had given the scroll was scrawny and expensive - Aloy was not very confident that the message would get anywhere useful. Erend interrupted her thoughts so much that any guilt had simply collapsed under the weight of repetition, so she pushed him away with mastery. "No, I want to finish some things before leaving. I'll go back to the facility for now."

CYAN's control over the facility had allowed her to help Ourea, and the same control gave her some advantages Aloy's first manual task had been restoring a segment of the ventilation systems.

Finding the piece she had to look for had taken a while, then she had pulled it from the motherboard: CYAN had vanished for some seconds. Aloy had no idea how she had managed to come back. The following tries and mistakes weren't as critical, but the door that refused to close had remained inoperable. It was inside the building, so it didn't matter.

Getting a good grasp at how she fared with small tasks was more valuable than entering the main room and letting the heat impact her face like a sandstorm after a few hours of snowy riding: she had been unprepared. Unready to understand what GAIA was. Repairing her seemed more and more impossible the more she learned.

"Is the temperature comfortable, Aloy? I've been able to optimize the distribution of resources, so there's added disposable energy."

Energy. Everything was running on it, even her Focus used it. It was right before their eyes, shocking them with every Stormbird attack, with each whirring machine. The Carja had managed to make lamps than didn't run on oil, but no one controlled it, not like the Old Ones had.

"It's comfortable. Thanks, CYAN." Aloy made sure the fur over her shoulders was covering her well before stepping out of the heat. Cooking in the main room had cost her two days of smelling like braised meat and even more for the place to ventilate. That's how CYAN had proposed they tried to fix it.

The facility was enormous, so there were plenty of places with enough snow to keep her meat from spoiling too soon. What was Erend eating? Was he eating at all? She tried again, but there was nothing in the Cut that would make her efforts to copy the taste of his dishes successful.

"Would you like to resume our discussion, Aloy?"

Aloy stirred, trying to sound uninterested. "Which one?"

“You asked me if I considered Anita Sandoval as my mother."

"Well...she _ made _ you." They were never short of topics to discuss. CYAN's questions were systematic: which emotions were portrayed in that short story? Why would the characters of this holomovie feel this or that way? They'd reach the point where she didn't know what to say, so she'd listen while CYAN explained using words she didn’t understand sometimes.

How the Old Ones lived, the wars they fought, the myriad of comforts they had; the ones Aloy wished hadn't vanished into nothingness. Perhaps Rost wouldn't have died of a wound like that, or Ersa would've survived. Her imaginations of Elisabet's life had gained all sorts of things: what she ate, the words she said, the clothes she wore, what type of dreams she might have had.

"I do not. However, there's no reason why I couldn't."

The food got stuck in her throat. No one else had to ask an AI if they thought they had a mother. "Why not?"

"Anita Sandoval never stated I was her daughter. Instead, she considered herself as my creator. _ Mother _is a term used to designate a female parent. A female parent is someone who gives birth. In this sense, Anita Sandoval wouldn't be my mother."

"So? You said you could consider her your mother."

"A _ parent _is someone who raises a child. Furthermore, _ to mother _means to treat a person with great kindness and love and to try to protect them from anything dangerous or difficult. I'm pretty confident that, under this definition, Anita Sandoval and Kenny Chau would be my mothers."

Aloy broke into a smile. "Kenny Chau would be your mother?"

"Figuratively. I understand the term isn't applied to human males." She played idly with the pieces of meat on her plate. Was Rost her mother then? And Erend? It sounded ridiculous. "I haven't felt the need to conceptualize my relationship with my creators in such a way, but it would be possible. I detect significant anxiety in your speech patterns. Could you please give me more information about your concern?"

"In last week's documentary..._ We Were Indonesia? _ The one about the nanotech disaster at the Citarum River."

"Yes."

Aloy felt the pressure seeping from her Focus and strangling her sometimes: filling the gaps meant she didn't have to imagine what would happen if she couldn't repair GAIA. The Claw-back had been terrible, the Faro plague had been even worse. The Carja tendency to record everything was just a thing that survived a thousand years.

"After the disaster, many lost their families, and...new families were born. That boy...he called that woman his mother. She wasn't. Was it common? To get a new mother...when you don't have one."

"What is a mother, Aloy?" The furred leather fell off her shoulders with ease once she passed the door. CYAN's hologram shone in green to greet her.

Paying in bluegleam made things seem more expensive than when paying in shards: Aloy patted the furs she had bought and put above two of the bedrolls Ourea had left in the station with care. They weren't Erend hugging her after a long day while she curled the fine hairs on his chest, but it was the closest she could find. "You just said it. Someone who gives birth."

"Correct. But as we just reviewed, giving birth is not enough to define what a mother is. Why do you think that boy called that woman his mother?"

Aloy rolled to her side, crunching her body until her knees were in front of her hips. The soft hair of the furs caressed her face and arms as she moved, trapped in them. The room was warm.

"I guess...that woman _ mothered _ him." Defining a word using that same word. CYAN would grab those chances to ramble about Aristotle, Socrates, or another Old -very old- One; but not that night. "He felt loved."

"I believe so, Aloy. I continue to enjoy our conversations. Would you like me to keep reading last's night book?"

"That sounds good."

CYAN began reading or reciting, Aloy couldn't tell which. CYAN was more but also indistinguishable from her database: was it the same with memories? Would she be another person if she had different ones? And were memories more important than having the same DNA. Would Elisabet also think of herself as her mother if they were to change places? They had the same body, so maybe they'd feel similarly if their memories matched.

Building a network had uses Aloy hadn't imagined. Finding Elisabet Sobeck was one.

* * *

"CYAN?"

"Greetings, Aloy. I'm delighted to hear your voice again." Her knuckles were white, clutched around her spear. The weapon now housed both the master override and the code that needed to be injected in every Tallneck. The module case had opened like a book, and new data was flowing from the machine to the designated database.

Aloy left her spear in one of the few places not covered by electrified cables before sinking her hips next to her feet with indulgence. Her neck's muscles labored to keep her straight — there wasn't a lot of space to rest in a Tallneck's head. The network had remained workable past the Grave-Hoard, but the blackout had been complete since. "So? Tell me."

"I'm sending a large size file to your Focus." Aloy stood, aware of the thunderbolts raging around her boots. The time counter began losing seconds following the taps of her right foot; one, two, three, four...

_ Download completed. _

"You should be proud of this achievement, Aloy."

"We should. We did this together."

"Thank you. Field strength had peaked and remained stable with the addition of the second cell. My estimations project RSSI values in the range of..."

There'd be no witnesses except the clouds, so the yawn occupied all her mouth. Her fingers had memorized the motion: it wasn't time yet, but she couldn't help herself. Opening the map, selecting Meridian as destiny. The small marker showed how many feet were between her and the gates. She added some more in her head, the ones who’d take her home.

* * *

The key was sweating in her fist. It had taken her too long to find it: Rost's cabin's never had one, so she wasn't used to needing anything to enter her own home. The purple block went up the stairs, then came down and fluttered around the living room. Should she have opened the door — pretend that she had left yesterday? The seventh time of looking down didn't change things: her shoes were still under her ankles, and above them, there were her knees. She was only loud on purpose. Aloy couldn't make sure she was still in one piece when the door cracked a rumble.

"Hey." Only three. The door's width was just three steps, and he made them in the wrong direction: Erend got farther the surer he grew that he hadn't misheard. The arches of her soles flattened, making the contained impulse in her feet burn. It was still better than a deep gulp that was too far to be that hurtful. 

“Hey." Aloy counted his fourth shift of weight from one foot to the other. "I need...to the Palace. Yeah, so..." His eyes drifted to the area behind her. 

She hadn't planned to wait until he was late -again-, but the door and the long, empty alley had held her for too long. It hadn't been three, or four, but almost five months. Meridian was unrecognizable, _ recovered _, so what if Erend had too? Five months sufficed to make a new life. One without someone who broke every single promise: the ones she couldn't have prevented from breaking, like saving Ersa. The times she had decided he wasn't the most important, and the certainty that she'd have chosen the same every single time, that she'd do it in the future. That she hadn't another option. That he knew it, too. 

Maybe waking him up would've been more natural. Following him as he dragged his feet to the kitchen. Sitting on the table, watching while he made himself something to eat. Doing something that would mask the awkwardness so they could laugh — the distance suddenly hurt the most when he was just three feet away.

Erend grabbed the right sleeve of his shirt and began folding it around his forearm with firm and precise movements. The heat would be even more unbearable with any layer under the thick leather of his gloves, so she didn't surprise to see him do the same he did every morning. Except this time his steady gaze was a test: the random peeks at his fingers, twisting the white and yellow stripes, were a momentary slip. Aloy muttered a curse when he slid between her body and the door frame.

His fourth failed attempt at looking unaffected wasn't as subtle as the sound of her own blood. It was ringing in her ears: there were two columns on the front porch, one for each body. His balance slipped when he tried to put his hands behind his neck. Planting his boot against the pillar had also looked good until both realized he hadn't clasped it well around his shin. Erend began bouncing his hands above his eyes, making his fingertips slap his forehead while his palms rubbed his eyelids as if it would erase the world from them.

"Glad to know you were _ actually _ seeing me. Had a moment of doubt before..." His eyelids gained wrinkles. Aloy shook her head, letting her hands express her amusement. "Whatever _ that _ was."

"I guessed you needed some space?" His lips broke a half-smile. "I mean, you looked about to pass out? Ah, don't sweat it. I'm used to having that impact on the ladies."

"Oh? Because you seem awfully...by yourself. Is your lady waiting to come out or...?" His brow raised as her thumb pointed to the open door. "_ I mean_, don't mind me." Aloy knew there was no one inside, but she still felt like doing a check with her Focus. Erend followed the trail of her eyes.

"She was supposed to be here. _ Long ago_. I guess she's having a blast where she is? Can't blame her."

"Since you knew it'd happen?" The air flowed in and out of his cheeks. Erend pinched and tried to break the bridge of his nose after her inevitable shrug. The Shield-Weaver armor was more comfortable than any other: the top was a single piece. A click let Aloy knew it had unfastened. Erend watched as she began removing the weight from her chest. "It's hotter than I remember. Meridian."

"Yeah, happens when you're away for too long."

"I should've guessed it'd be worse after months in the Cut." Her serious semblance almost failed at that sparkle: piquing Erend's interest made the clumsy undressing worth it. "I'm not too sure, but I may have heard some things. About..." She looked up and gulped. It wouldn't work if she laughed. "Your lady. It's said..." His right foot began tapping the small steps of the entrance. "That she found someone who knows how to repair GAIA. And these..."

Her fingers reached for one of the triangles in her pouch. "They say she made them talk. That's stupid." She had just thrown her chest plate across the door, and Erend looked about to choke - her or himself, she couldn’t tell yet. "It's the person wearing them. The one who talks?" His eyes would have rolled in a full circle if they could, but Aloy kept talking. "But most wouldn't know it. It took her a lot of effort, building that damn network."

Aloy moved and stopped three steps past the door frame and continued without turning. "Rumor has it she rode back to Meridian for days. Without stopping. And as soon as she could. But you'll have to ask her..." He had been toasting some of that sweet bread the Carja made with the pumpkins that used to grow in Meridian Village. The odor of the wax he used to polish his armor was strong, like something only a man would wear. His gloves were in their place, on the couch next to the door, bathed by the bluish light of Meridian's lamps, waiting for a new day to roast his hands. How could someplace that gloomy feel welcoming? It wasn't just the bedroom. The house didn't have a single window. "Looks like she's home now."

Baffled? Mad? Aloy made him feel as if swinging his hammer at the world wouldn’t be enough to help him calm down, but he didn’t want to calm down. Erend stared as she kicked the last piece of armor off her knee. Each thump against the floor had been a statement. She was making herself comfortable, making it clear that she owned it: the upper hand, every corner of that house. Him.

"Without stopping? She must care a lot about me then. I had to do it once, and those things she rides...they _ rasp _."

Aloy turned, her chin up, her eyes fixed on him. Erend felt the door frame melting under his hands, wondering why Aloy hadn't blown away the only thing keeping him in place. "Hm...she does."

As if they were terrible at not missing each other so much: the months should've taught them how to handle the pain, but there was no lesson to draw from that kiss. The only sense that wasn't being exhausted was the sense of shame. Erend pressed her earlobes, nibbled the tip of her nose, licked her jawbone from side to side. Aloy had closed her eyes before his hand had grabbed her nape, before he had been able to taste her mouth, before he was sure he couldn’t but kiss her when she was so sure he would. 

And then the door had closed, and he was as clueless as to how they were in the landing of the stairs, or why only her shirt was on the floor.

"You were going to the Palace?"

"I am."

Their bedroom kept being too far: she hadn't waited past his glans peeking out above his waistband to kneel, he had tripped. Erend felt his slacks falling to the middle of his thighs, Aloy's breath, then his head hitting against the steps. He'd let her go just to watch her suck like that every time she came back.

Aloy slammed her face on his lap and dug her fingers in his leg: the extra length she couldn't fit had entered after a few warming tries. She stayed there, moving her tongue and letting his hands push her head down until he couldn't contain a groan. She sat to inhale all the air he had robbed, but Aloy wasn't the only one eager to touch.

His hands slid with ease under her pants and around her ass, moving across the layers until touching her lips: her clothes were humid, that barely cold dampness that couldn't have belonged to Meridian, that wouldn't have been there if she hadn't rushed. His fingers slid inside the hair over her nape. Everywhere was wet.

She pushed him back. The suction was unmerciful: her lips sucked him in and up, forcing her mouth to battle and struggle to reach the end. Her braids looked tidy in the beginning and messy in the end. Finishing a braid would be nothing if she had been desperate to get back. Get back to him. Aloy always closed her eyes when his cock was in her mouth, and like every other time, Erend felt all of the world's effort pooling in her temples, pleasing him. 

"Should I thank the guy you practiced with? Because I'm pretty sure I'm supposed to get mad." 

"Hm...you look alike?" She craned her head back, tightening the skin of his balls with her lips and covering it in spit, looking at his struggle to form words with a mouth so open. They slid out of her mouth with a plop. "He just happens to live inside my head."

"See? Not bad, having a clone." Aloy rolled her eyes, so he grabbed the base and slapped her cheek. She wouldn't know how much he had missed it, rubbing it all over her face, but she reacted just as he wished: getting closer, offering her forehead, her cheeks, her chin, trying to put his tip back in her mouth.

"I didn't say who I liked best, though." She tried to sit straight between his feet. Erend tried to grab her nape, but she bit his fingers lightly, doing to his fingertips what she would have done to his glans. He sat too and gripped her breasts, kneading them while driving his tongue around her mouth. Her lips were reddish, bloated. 

"I fear your memory sucks, but hopefully not as good as you do?" He made a few taps on the step above him with his free hand, shaking his head to point to the place. "Come."

Aloy pretended to be offended by his swagger before pushing her hand against his chest and climbing his body. He loved watching her limbs move. She climbed slopes in all fours, using her feet and hands, and there could be a dozen too-idiot-to-give-up Eclipse scraps waiting to be dealt with just ahead, but his mind could only think of one thing when her hips shook like that.

Erend helped her pants get out of the way, Aloy moved up. A pair of her fingers showed him the path. The pink, shiny skin and her flushed clitoris were supposed to be the ones to beg, but he hadn’t smelled her in so long. Aloy grunted when he moved his chin closer, spreading her fingers as he brushed her hair with his nose. 

"Use them," he said, rubbing one of her knuckles this time.

"Lick me." One finger waited for her insides to answer and contract as he touched the rims, as they had that first time not that long ago in the bed above their heads. She had closed her legs that day. Not then.

"You stick your fingers in, I'll do my part. Deal?" 

He would've preferred to watch, but Aloy wouldn't accept without making sure he'd comply. He had pushed his mouth up to show his compromise, sipping her. Then her hips had moved over his face, spreading her lips all over his face. Being under there meant only one thing: he had to put his forearm above her ass. Push down. Her fluids spread from his beard to his brows as her moan tickled even his groins. She stroked his cheek when attempted to breathe. Two fingers continued down and disappeared. Her lips trapped his nose when she moaned. 

Others would say their bodies danced in battle, but that's because no one had seen them having sex: he'd circle her clitoris, she'd finger herself when he sucked and pulled it, flicking his tongue against its head. But pleasure had a way to make you falter, so the plan began working. Her hand was much smaller than his hand, so small that he could wrap her wrist with just two fingers.

The rest were free to join hers. Erend curled and thrust them, not knowing if he was rubbing her walls or her knuckles, perhaps her nails. It didn't matter, not with the pressure of too many fingers moving rhythmically in and out. Her moan became so deep it didn't sound. A thin stream of fluid began collecting on her palm before flowing to her wrist: he had never had one, but her hand soon became his favorite spoon. He licked and sucked her, sliding his tongue from her elbow to her clitoris in a loop. 

Aloy looked down. Red cheeks, messier hair. No one knew that face: the one she put when anything but making her come was out of the question. This one was slow-paced. The kind of end that made her spine bend and bend before convulsing; one of those that made his tongue flimsy. He didn't have to probe to reach the most sensitive spot, not with how excited she was. He just guzzled her until her toes dug into his chest. 

He tried - Erend had tried to slow her down and nibble her nipples, his beard had left a trail of warmth and wetness on her waist. He had even sat and tried to kiss her, but the closer she was, the more desperate his hand became. She grabbed his hair, moved her knees to sit comfortably in his lap. His lips shuddered with impatience. It was a sequence: his hand darted up and down, found it, his hips jerked. His hair slid in her fingers, he grunted, then cursed, then quieted, ecstatic. She rubbed her thumbs on his cheeks, he kissed them.

She hadn't forgotten, but she embraced his shoulders and closed her eyes all the same: she hadn't forgotten, but she had missed it for so long. His cock felt the thickest those first seconds. Her body had gotten unused to being penetrated, but the soreness turned to nothing when he pressed his nails in her ass. Nothing else moved, only her hips pressed down and his hips up. He whined when she tilted her hips, breaking the trance. They had, but they kissed as if they hadn't had the time to do it yet. 

"I _ kind of _ missed you. A lot."

She kissed him back. "Not enough to take off your shirt." It was the only piece of clothing left.

It was clumsy, inharmonious: Erend laughed and secured her against his trunk, one of his arms support their combined weight. His knees took the load as he lifted her. Her hair cascaded; his muscles shifted under the effort of putting her down gently. Aloy noticed patches of yellowish skin on his waist, licked them. He plunged.

Each step cutting the skin of her back was a letter of his name: Erend knelt between her legs and shut her up with a thrust - and she should've known from his smile. His shirt began moving very slowly under his fingers, driving her eyes to his stomach. He'd push. His hand would move, lifting the fabric just enough to make her snarl. Aloy arranged her shoulders and positioned so she could look. First up, to how thick his wrist was and to every new line of muscles showing in his stomach. Then down, to the lines of effort showing in his legs, driving his hips forward. To his cock entering, and the hair around it brushing her.

Paying thousands of shards to watch him fuck her and undress at the same time would've been a bargain just a few hours ago, but that was before having him that close. She grabbed the shirt, he resisted. One, two times. The cloth flew above her head, she pulled him, her arms and legs trapped him like a Corruptor's tail, digging into his skin. He took advantage of the raised position of her legs. Her moan spoke too much, saying how many times she had put her Focus on the floor and touched herself thinking of how warm it'd be, getting back those long nights when even the walls ended covered in sweat. 

"I'd rather hear it in words, but I won't complain if you make that sound again?" 

"Shut up." Aloy grabbed each side of his beard and pulled him down to her kiss. Her hands made a line. A line from his nape to his ass, like the line she wished was between her and him, a clear, straight line with no bumps. What if he hadn't talked with her? She wouldn't have approached him. What if he hadn't insisted when she pushed him away. What if he hadn't waited until she could understand that the way he looked at her when their hips clashed wasn't an excess. Erend noticed when she couldn't stop looking at his face: he smiled, repeated and repeated her name.

She didn't know if her heart was supposed to hurt, but it did when he said it in her stead; how much he had missed her, again, whispered love in her ear. Three steps had seemed so much a moment ago. Three words weren't supposed to be that hard. "I love you."

Erend's first instinct was closing his mouth. The second, making sure his weight hadn't crushed her against the steps. Aloy looked as her words had sounded: her eyes were circles, and her hands were almost writhing under his shoulders. So he kissed her.

He licked every tooth, stopping to feel the slant of her crooked one. He loved it so much - its angle, her temples and the few drops of sweat around her ears. The shape of her head and how her scalp felt under his fingertips. The longing carried him. To the small scar in her forehead, so he fondled it too; and to the long scar in her neck, more raised on the right than on the left, and he loved it because perhaps that had saved her. Aloy caressed the shell of his ear, he rested his cheek on hers and felt her touch his earrings. Doubt? There wasn't any doubt. Hearts melted. And it felt exactly like that - like the steel expanding inside of his chest, sizzling. 

"Are you mad? I...took so long." Her voice came from under, so he moved to look at her face. 

"No?"

"_That_ sure looks not mad."

Erend looked down. His erection had seen better days; it wasn't gone, but his breath was still managing with the consequences of Aloy, so luckily it couldn’t put a lot of effort into feeling ashamed. "Uh...not mad and_..._shocked?" She didn't look convinced, and why would she? It had happened, but not yet with her. He shrugged it off: there had never been a wider distance between a body and its desire. "You're...almost twenty now? In a few months?"

"So?"

"So I..._ yeah_, I've been waiting for too long." Aloy scowled, but he didn't let her look away. He slid his cock up and down her lips, rubbing his head against her clitoris. Her glutes fired - they did it again when he slid the tip inside. "I'd do it again." She frowned."Though I'd rather not wait so much this ti-" 

Erend couldn't tell the reason why - but he wasn't really worried. Aloy had chuckled, covered his cheeks with her palms, kissed the space between his brows like he always did. Then she made a few taps in his hand - she grabbed him firmly, pushing his foreskin back and moving her hips up and down. He knew her sex so well that he could see without looking away from her mouth - how her lips were trapping his glans, how it was moving along every crease of skin. 

"So...this happens when you're happy. "

He smiled at her smirk, then used the tip of his nose to help the other corner of her lip yield. "No. It happens when I'm _ damn happy_." 

Kissing her grin made him sigh. Erend touched the roots of her hair, sliding his fingers through her face. "Wanna bet? We could try. You just...need to say that again." He slid one thumb across the bridge of her nose. "I love you _too_. And yes, I've always wanted to say that."

If his question had been a whisper, her answer was a gust. He had read those damn glyphs until his eyes bled, but reading them in her mouth looked different, everything did when she said those three words while his hips returned to their place - right against her ass. His heart had pounded, stomped, beaten. It didn't any of that when Aloy's confession died in a muffled moan.

"Always? Because you're still hard." Their bodies separated slightly. Erend pushed himself up, she touched his chest. Her fingers knew the sensation - it was like the warmth you felt when approaching your fingertips to a fire. Aloy liked it, how his skin was the invisible line that kept you from burning. 

"Guess it doesn't when I'm even happier?" She smiled to make him less embarrassed, not knowing why, but knowing it would. The kiss was one of those that starts with mellowness and ends with teeth clicking, laughter making lips separate. The type of kiss that was hard to finish, that returned and returned losing innocence with each round. It was the last time she stared at him. Her eyes couldn't focus anymore.

Her knees squeezed his waist: Erend was proving what he couldn't hide, what hadn't shown in his cock for a moment, what she knew. She had always known: it made his body lean forward slightly whenever they talked, the pull. His knees had moved down one step at a time until there were no more steps. Erend planted his feet in the landing, extending his arms around her head. His hand yanked her legs open wide. 

The range of motion was impossible already, but she pushed her hips down to help him aim. His cock slid along her glutes the first time. The second time was almost it. The third time he hadn't been ready for how hard she had clamped him. Aloy grabbed the edge of the closest step and braced herself. They had reached it, the frenzy of the approaching orgasm, Erend pushing her ass up with his thighs in a calculated way. Nailing himself to the bottom, knowing that she would moan, grab his arms or shoulders or hair. Make one of those faces that could be either intense pleasure or pain that always felt somewhat embarrassing, even with him. 

His body fell between her arms with each of her spasms, descending under the weight of her moaning until his tongue sucked from nipple to nipple. His nose stuck at the midpoint between the breasts. Erend looked at her face and dry mouth and smiled with the content smile of a man who felt proud. She was more his than a second before, and they loved each other more for it. The hairs of his chest scratched her chest. It'd itch and redden when they mated like that, hugged in a knot.

His ear hovered over her mouth. He said that he loved her a thousand times, she said it a hundred. They could've been ten, or a million. He moved slowly, every muscle trembling as she repeated in a slow whisper what his nose brushing against her cheek kept asking. 

If he had been inside her mouth, she would have felt the base twitching and ejecting all of his cum down her throat. If it had been inside her hand, she would have seen the tip stain with that bitter white that would make him moan again as it disappeared between her lips. Erend would always watch her suck on her own fingers until there was nothing left. But he was inside. The signs were no more subtle because of that: she couldn't see his feet wriggling, but Aloy dragged her hands behind his back at the right moment. His ass hardened, as did his back, even his neck. 

His jaw broke, his brows furrowed. He was coming inside of her. Erend's voice was a bit hoarse, so his grunts were deep, turning the letters of her name that were scattered between moaning and groaning into mouthfuls of muffled pleasure. All that she had found it hard to feel and not just read in the pale lights of the past revived when Erend heaved a breath, exhausted, with his soft, worn-out cock still inside her. When they were not yet tired of doing things to the other's lips. When they smiled shamelessly, covered in sweat and fondness.

"Are you leaving like that? There's more sweat than hair." 

"Don't sa-"

"Since you don't have that much." Erend groaned and slid his fingertips from her forehead to her chin. Aloy chuckled. "I've missed it." Her fingers raked through his hair effortlessly. It was a bit longer, like his beard.

"Miss it? Nah, you love it." 

"Don't you have to go?" His thumb followed the line of her half-scowl. 

"Are we comparing lines now? I'm sure I made more than one on your back." Erend tried to peek behind her shoulder, frowning at the steps. "Hold tight. I'm not going anywhere." 

Resisting against someone who brought doors down with a kick would've never worked, so Aloy succumbed to her fate and curled in his shoulder, pressing his ass with her ankles. Maybe it'd work, and he'd stay there, inside, forever.

"Avad?"

"They'll let me know if something's wrong. The morning meetings are pretty useless anyway."

She hummed. The bedding was fluffy, his eyelids were closing, his naked body was her blanket. "I wouldn't have let you go anyway."

* * *

The fourth notification still startled him. When would the vibrant dins stop surprising him? Only a keen eye would find his shirt bulging around his lap, his slacks slightly untidier than usual. He was perching on his desk, watching her handle the pieces of Carja armor that hadn't been worn in months. Aloy leaned back on the chair of his office, escaping from the last absent-minded pinch on her right nipple before the noises of the blue silk swallowed it — not even that was stopping his stutter.

"Code fragment down...downloaded."

He hadn't tried to read them aloud before: those words he didn't quite know, in those strange glyphs he never thought he wouldn't be able to read fluently after studying them in silence for so long. Had she also botched them on her first try? Aloy approved the result with a nod, satisfied. The amount of small injuries coating her skin was startling. 

"So...this means you can repair GAIA?" Poems. And no connection between them and saving the world, not a direct one. The shapes in the Focus looked nothing like Aloy's handwriting. She'd wait whenever he had to check twice, struggling to decipher if there were one or two protruding sticks.

"HADES taught Sylen in exchange for the Eclipse."

"Talk about cheap." She scrunched her right shoulder.

"The metal flowers began appearing after the Derangement, which happened-"

"After GAIA blasted herself."

Her brows exploded, making her features expand upwards. "I sent this data point to your Focus, and your Focus _ downloaded _ it from mine." Her hands turned between them. "My Focus gives you access, your Focus copies what I give you. It _ downloads _ it." Her eyes spun up, trying to confirm he got it.

Erend wasn't sure, but she talked before he could figure it out. "DEMETER, if she...or he...or whoever making the metal flowers..." Aloy paused and caught him: his hand had been nesting in her neck, finding paths in her shoulders the more she leaned forward. He had held her face without covering an inch of that self-satisfied grin. His not-long-enough leave was meant to start after they picked up some documents, but they had stayed in there for too long for it to be believable they weren’t having sex over his desk. 

But they had been on track for a while after that, and her constant need to rephrase or rethink everything was as frequent as the toxic thoughts sprouting in his head. The censorship was there to make things simpler for him. "So they are...giving poems? To the flowers."

Another of those vague glances. Erend's knuckles cracked inside his fist. "It means there's a connection between the flowers and who's making them. Or that it existed. Like I have to be connected with your Focus to send you data points. Through our network."

Proud? All the time. Condescending? Aloy didn't have the time for that, but her warm smiles were making him feel like a child, asking shallow questions that would get a watered-down explanation. "Sylens...remember each Focus has a voice, a unique voice? He made them speak with each other." She waited for his cue of approval. "Surprisingly, he forgot to mention the most crucial part."

"Damn. Sylens? Who'd have imagined?"

"Networks are...traceable. Or they leave traces." Her chin dipped, making her face look like a sharp triangle from where he was.

"So...the Metal Flowers...led you? To GAIA?"

Her eyes rolled back and pulled her back to the chair. "Whoever put those poems there, they don't want to be found. Not easily. CYAN couldn't follow HEPHAESTUS's trace either." Aloy moved her hands above her brows and stared at him through the barrier. Was she expecting him to barf? "I'm trying ."

"Trying as in...giving everything else up and _trying_? You know, Aloy-trying?"

She looked up, waiting for a scold, grunting when she realized she had been waiting for one. Aloy sighed and slumped in the chair, making the wood creak. "CYAN, GAIA...they were made with knowledge, endless...streams of information. The answer to repairing GAIA is there, in her subfunctions."

She stood. He understood enough: if only what Aloy knew could _download _from her palms to his body. But it couldn't, so he kept listening when more information found its way after a few seconds of pensive muteness. She spoke as slowly as his fingertips exploring the angles of her hands. "_Code fragment downloaded_. The metal flowers downloaded these poems from _somewhere_. After GAIA blasted herself. After APOLLO was deleted. They _have it_ in them. I knew it, but now I understand: I can use it, what they know. It's not mu-"

Her back arched slightly: his fingers had flown to her forehead before sneaking to her lips. "Sounds...like a plan." He could smell the burnout, her tiredness. Erend threw a guileless shrug to try to shave her pressure off. "Like your old plan, _ yeah_. But planning an attack is better than improvising one. You said you've been learning to speak...machine codes? It sounds like a lot to me."

Aloy pushed her feet against the wood tiles: using her sandals as scapegoat had worked to keep her mouth closed. Erend was the only place in the world were saying that it wasn't enough wouldn't work. He had put some distance when she first gave him the Focus, but it had turned out to be a declaration of independence. A few minutes had sufficed to lead him to the settings, and deciding to keep the blue lights had taken him seconds. Yellow would be a better fit for his armor, but blue was the color she used. He had said it as though there was no reason to explain his choice or how he had managed to get that deep in the Focus’ settings any further. 

His face wouldn't get too red, but pinkish. He'd almost smile; his finger would rub his nose but stop before moving up again. He'd clear his throat, read aloud a few lines, wait until she nodded. Every time he did her insides would fidget, doing what his cheeks deserved when he looked that proud of having gotten all the words right. Was it because things were too fresh? Even his smiles had changed — Erend kissed her thumb, smiling out of nowhere, just to help set the molten steel of their serenity. She was back. He had a Focus. She couldn't stay long, he sniffed it. They hadn't discussed what would happen after the after. Perhaps there wasn't anything to talk about.

"So...she talks." Erend leaned back on the table until his boots swung underneath. Her hips would move whenever her toes and heels decided they weren't comfortable, making her change positions. "I mean, like...a normal person?"

Aloy turned and spread her arms over the window ledge in front of where he was. "She is a person. That's what Kenny Chau said, and what I think. Ready?"

Erend stood and grabbed her arms, putting them around his waist. "Yeah? Wait -- _ what _...what do I tell her?"

"Hey, CYAN." Their bodies gave in, letting them relax until his elbows stopped right where hers had been before she squeezed him. Her sneer spread when he moved his hands below the silk wrapped around her upper back.

"Greetings, Aloy. I trust your trip was agreeable."

"I've been..." A sinner? Him? Erend was looking at her as if he had played no part. "_Busy_. Sorry for not reaching out sooner."

"Contact was made within the estimated time of response. Subjectively, the time that passed between this and our last conversation was short. Perhaps because our temporal scales are so different."

"Makes sense. Everything's fine?"

"All readings indicate so. I've received petitions from a new user. Admin access was used to allow the connection. Does this match with your latest activity?"

"It does, but I think he has a name?" Her elbows pressed his waist, her jaw bobbed forward.

"C-CYAN?"

"I'm listening." 

"I'm...Erend? Erend...Vanguardsman."

"Greetings, Erend Vanguardsman, I'm pleased to meet you."

"Yeah, me too. Aloy talked about you, uh..." When? In the twelve hours she had been in Meridian? "Well, not a lot, but..."

He had seen GAIA's hologram, but this wasn't something distant. CYAN was talking to him, and the world was in silence since it also knew. He was, right then, the future that had deep roots. "So...Aloy can be a loose cannon sometimes, right?" She showed her teeth, he attempted to kiss them — and failed. "Bet she gave you more headaches than she gave me, and I've had my share. We could bond over torture or something?"

"Unfortunately, my development didn't include the capacity for sensing physical pain. However, I recognize your idiomatic use of the expression and the nuance of your tone. I am fortunate to have met Aloy."

"Right. Yeah, yeah, me too."

Aloy tried to keep the snort in her nose, trap it in her throat. Erend was flustered — he had moved out of her arms, and his eyes keep looking nowhere and everywhere. His hand flew in front of her to stroke his nape, threading inside and out of his hair. There was only one person who let his bad jokes fell that flat — her.

"She can't laugh," Aloy said.

"What?"

_ "_She can't laugh._" _ He had hunched, covering his Focus with one hand as if he could prevent CYAN from eavesdropping. "I'm pretty sure she's turning bright green, but...she can't laugh."

His earrings turned under his fingers. "Bright green."

"My interface is designed to represent my emotional states. Brighter colors correlate with positive emotions. I am excited to learn more about you, Erend. Aloy has explained to me how unusual it is for humans of this era to use a Focus device."

Aloy had to nibble her fist: she had crossed her arms, and Erend had taken the chance to hang from her shoulders, putting his hands in them and all of the weight of the moment over his knees. He was standing very close, forcing her to look up to read his face. The border between his temples and the flushed skin of his cheeks was almost a straight line. Concentrating on the golden Carja decorations of the window helped; the dorkiness was too strong.

But then his whisper was back. Erend lowered his head, glancing at the opposite side of his Focus, trying to take his voice farther from it. "But...she can...feel, right? You told me she'd be happy?"

"That's correct, Erend." He flinched as if CYAN's ability to pick up even the faintest whisper terrified him. "My creators deemed it necessary to push my sentience further than what the legal limits allowed, inducing me to develop a highly-functional emotional development. This was critical to ensure I was able to execute my tasks efficiently."

His sadness made her laugh tenderly: Erend was disgusted. "Then...why can't you laugh?" Like he would if someone had just told him he'd get happiness, but no more laughter until he died. Then he looked at her. She hugged him, what else could she do when he stared at her like that?

"It wasn't needed."

"Fire and spit, that's terrible." She had rested her chin on his chest, so the ends of his beard were moving above her eyes. His lips creased, then their corners spread to the sides. "But we can still have fun, right? You can tell me how you're feeling."

"Thank you, Erend. While your compassion moves me, I am afraid I haven't understood. Could you please give me more information about your concern? I don't recognize the relationship between fire, spit, and empathy."

"Of course you'd _ shrug_."

Aloy shrugged again when he kissed her forehead. Then a few times more when he tried to explain what the Oseram were, and how they compared with the Banuk, who CYAN knew better. No one had dared enter his office, not after seeing her strolling next to him. A sweet laziness escorted them out of the training grounds.

Their steps didn't match: he'd stop to ask for the right word to boast about how his tribe was the most comfortable with Old One's technology. His laugh erupted when CYAN described how the Banuk kept trying to convince her that she was a spirit. He explained that his tribe would think she was the machine making the world work. CYAN said she'd prefer that.

He asked her to show him how her hologram looked. Aloy leaned over one of Meridian's balconies, he hugged her. After a long time, there was nothing wrong with doing nothing important for a little while. Nothing, except recharging inside Erend's arms and enjoying the warm night.

* * *

Rubbing his nose hid the gesture of his hand. The _picture_ had changed with the swipe, but it looked almost the same as the last one: Aloy, sleeping. The Focus could download and reproduce them, but the purple holograms needed additional machines to be made. Erend didn't mind, not when the flat, colorful ones were just a few taps away.

They were like the relics shown in Sobeck's explanation about APOLLO, those that reminded him of Meridian. His throat rasped steel when the image spread under his fingers, drawing more suspicious glances from the surrounding people. Aloy's face was all around him. Literally. It'd stay there -along with the hundreds of other pictures he hadn't made yet- after she left.

Another swipe in the top right corner changed the song playing. Swiping songs still made him smile. He couldn't understand why the Old Ones used triangles for certain things, but the more he toyed with the Focus, the more obvious everything was. Aloy had been eager to show him music. Not this, or that tune: _ music_, because it was nothing that anyone who hadn't died a thousand years ago would have heard before. Unlike him, she had a special affection for _Concrete Beach Party_, but there were too many songs to make her sit, rub his scalp, and explain each weird word.

Erend moved his hands, chuckling as he read the names: the _menu_, like what you'd get to choose food; _ go back_, when his feet didn't move an inch, only his hands did. The symbols -applications, as CYAN had called them- slid with the movement of his eyes. Some didn't work, others had begun functioning with the network. His eyes stuck again to the one making him doubt the most, that symbol shaped like a bow with thick, rounded ends. Did it do the same as the square and the triangle next to it? Both would "call her": it made sense, using that verb to describe talking across distances. Calling. _ Calling Aloy. _

He didn't understand why there were instructions to turn the Focus off when it only required two taps or doing nothing for a while but not for that. How did they do it? Did they talk to each other all the time? Maybe they didn't since they could: things lost value when you took them for granted. Would Aloy think that talking every day was too much? They already did it when they were together.

Erend whiffed, taking a look around and driving a deep breath to his lungs. The training grounds were bustling with activity: the Carja preferred bodyweight exercises, on the other side, the customary Vanguard's competitions about who had lifted the biggest rock, log, or machine component were unfolding. Hammers hadn't started flying yet. A world where you could speak with everyone anytime sounded difficult: how did they evade each other when they needed to? What happened when you craved to call someone every two minutes?

"What's wrong with your breathing?"

"Uh? Oh, I was...training." The sound was familiar: her mount's legs, impacting against the ground as she rode. He had gotten tired of it when they traveled to Pitchcliff, but there was more. "So...it works? You can hear me?"

Aloy tittered after his bluff. "Why wouldn't it work?"

The badly-hidden laugh was almost a tingling, then he heard her inspirations, the quirky noises of her throat and mouth. The soft variations of her voice, how complex it sounded, how much he liked it. Whatever resting had managed to gain for his lungs was gone: his heart was pounding harder than it had while dragging a massive steel plate across the yard.

Aloy inspired more profoundly sometimes, others, the mount's swaying turned the puffs into panting. The only moment when she panted inside his ear was when they had sex. He felt muddled. Her voice would stop meaning she had arrived.

"Are you still far?" A grunt pulled him down to reality. He was blocking the access to the sandbags, standing in front of the arched doorway like an idiot. Erend grabbed the edge of his shirt and began shaking it, creating an airstream over his stomach as he escaped from the skeptical looks. The first lesson had been fast: it was safer calling her from his office.

"I just left? I thought you were going to wait a few hours before calling." She paused, letting the momentum build. "At least?"

_ Safer_, because those adorable, little smiles had tiny noises he wouldn't have listened without the Focus, and his body didn't care where he was when it reacted to them. "I'd finish the..._ call_, but I haven't figured how. Yet." He got it just then. The somewhat clanging sound of their laughs, weaving through the Focuses, would lift his mood for as long as she kept him. "You're coming back after overriding that Tallneck, right?"

She had only two more to hack: the one in Copper Deeps and the one in Rustwatch. The last one was close to the Forbidden West, so she had left it for the end. "I was about to tell you." The excuse made her voice lump. "CYAN thinks she can try something, so I'm going to Cauldron XI. It won't take more than a day."

"Oh...okay. "

"Has the Vanguard begun? With the machine archive."

"Hm? Oh, yeah. I'm giving a speech in a bit, just to encourage the rest of the men."

A small smile tugged at the corner of his lips. It wasn't a big deal, but Aloy had said the work she had put felt more worthwhile while her hands inspected one of the copies he had brought home with him. It was a long shot, but one day her work with Talanah had seemed like the best way to help spread the word about what to be careful of if you happened to get ambushed by one or two machines.

Most of the commoners couldn't read and the handmade copies would cost Avad a fortune, but everyone seemed to agree with his idea when he explained along with the drawings and focusing on Aloy's well-structured tips. A simpler version of them, at least. Avad had approved the plan, Marad had coordinated the copying process, and the Hunters Lodge had begun training those who wanted to learn a thing or two about increased chances of surviving even if they couldn't dodge. Having the Vanguard give short speeches explaining the basics along with the pages seemed like the least they could do, and being the first one to give them the least he could do.

"Oh, let's keep the call going then."

"Why?"

"So I can listen. I like it when you explain things, you're good at that." Erend felt his chest puff. 

"Uh...it's just a short thing, but...yeah, sure."

His pulse had stopped when Aloy dragged him out of Meridian and showed him what she had been seeing with her Focus for months: the lines that marked the path they followed suddenly disappeared beneath the new machines. The guide would blink and change every few minutes, and somehow, it meant the machines were learning. Adapting to the environment, reading it, taking into account every rock and leaf not to terraform, but to hunt better, to be more lethal. 

She couldn't say why the small scale, reducing the population human by human didn't make sense. The attacks happened when the chances of success were high: enough machines for bigger groups, weak humans, or both; and she had noticed the machines weren’t everywhere, but around crops, the jungle. Aloy didn’t know what they guarding, but her efforts were never short. The Master Override had let her and CYAN gain access to the Cauldrons, but HEPHAESTUS hadn't backed down. He had undone Aloy's measures, almost followed CYAN's trace, and amidst that block of news, Erend saw it clearly. If humans were a threat, Aloy was the tastiest bounty.

"Jjust...bring your ass back in one piece, yeah?"

"Sure about that? Last time I checked, there were two, but if you insis-"

He sighed. "Aloy."

"I'll be back soon."

"I know." The awkward silences were easier if they couldn't see each other. He still wished he could see her. "Hey, can you download more songs to my Focus? I have some rounds to make, see if everything's alright. CYAN's been picking them for me, but..." Could the Focus record her laughter? He'd have to explore some more. Recording his loved ones was the only thing he could understand from Dervhal.

"Yeah, I know those yawns. I'm on it." He didn't need them, but Erend checked the names of the files as they downloaded to his Focus. More terms that he was sure meant something different, some that sounded intriguing. But as promised, Aloy didn't want to end the call, and he'd rather listen to her voice than anything else.

* * *

"Oh, no. No, no, Al-!"

_ Damn square with a triangle. _

Everything rocked, and the only thing in his hands -her hands- was a stupid rope covered by two small machine pieces that were making her slide too fast. Erend groaned and slapped the desk, trying to sink the table on the floor. It wouldn't keep the thunderbolts away from her. Blue light exploded in the sky, the horizon spun, her feet touched ground graciously.

"Erend?"

"Hammer and steel!" The deep sound almost made the Focus vibrate: the Tallneck's holo-leg smashed the world in front of his desk, making Aloy loose balance and his view to tumble. Erend couldn't help leaning back, mimicking her caution. "Is this how you're _not_ planning to die anytime soon?"

"I thought you'd be happy? I was beginning to doubt there'd be any Tallnecks around here."

Holocalls. It sounded like a call, worked as a call, but it allowed you to see how Aloy jumped from a Tallneck. From her eyes. The signal wasn't transmitted if Tallneck's weren't around, and he had also begun worrying there was none past that stupid gate. Why couldn't the Sundom reach the whole world? The Forbidden West looked redder than Meridian, but the only things around were the same old chunks of rock that were everywhere. He squinted his eyes when Aloy began turning, showing him where she was. Nothing dangerous, not that he could see.

It had been weeks since she had come out of the Rustwash's Tallneck range. Weeks of worry and silence. "It's been some time, so maybe you forgot how messages work? They're handy. You can tell me you're about to jump, for example. _ From a Tallneck." _

"I told you I rappelled down from them. It's your fault for not believing me." He didn't need to see her shoulders to picture with utmost accuracy how they were moving.

"You told me...a year and half a year ago in a house that doesn't exist anymore, you mean?"

"So?"

Erend stirred his back against the chair, unrolling his legs and letting his hands held his head. His heart was demanding blood: having witnessed Aloy's boots approach death was the top reason. Getting that long-awaited call also had to with it. "_ So_, show me." Aloy snorted and -weirdly- complied without resistance. Her hand reached for her Focus, being careful that her fingers were still touching the right spot so it wouldn't turn off. It had taken them too long to figure that out. Then she put it in front of her and greeted him with the face you saved for a funeral.

Erend tapped the air as fast as his hand allowed and watched as the captures stockpile in a corner. The blue lights of her Shield Weaver armor were mixed with pieces of clothing he hadn't seen before, but he'd have more time to scrutinize them later. "I'm going to make you pay with more pictures. Spicy ones," he said.

"Oh, I was thinking of changing your photo. A snap of your defeat sounds good." The rocks tilted as she passed her Focus to her temple. "Your turn." He mimicked her, moving the Focus around his head and wondering how laughable he looked. 

"Have you found anything?" He put the Focus back in his temple with care and removed his boots before sprawling on the bench placed next to his desk. Catching a flash of her hands or feet when she looked around was a thousand times better than the future he had imagined anyway.

"CYAN's scanning the terrain readings. If there's anything around here...well, she'll tell me."

She couldn't give her specific orders, so CYAN's help was limited. Aloy waited a few more seconds to let her finish and inhaled deeply when the map updated with the new Tallneck’s data showed in her Focus's interface. 

There were a bunch of locations marked, all around what would've been Carson City, Nevada. Elisabet Sobeck's place of birth. The marks pointed to what CYAN considered abnormalities: too many machines in one place, extreme temperature changes, unidentified objects. Having maps of the past had been handy to find Faro's bunker, but statistical significance only covered so much. She wasn't far from the nearest one, a few days at full speed at most. 

"Maybe there's nothing," Aloy said.

"Maybe. I'm waiting here, though, and I'm a lot more interesting." Aloy laughed, knowing that he'd worry more if she didn't.

"Are you?"

"Auch? Just come, I'll show again."

"I'll hold you up to that."

"Already getting excited." She had waited, knowing that he'd be free to talk if she did. Having the time displayed in the top corner of their Focuses made plans easier to arrange, and finally going back to their talking-everyday routine didn't sound half-bad.

"You haven't watched them yet? The final episodes."

"Haven't you?" Aloy didn't make an effort to grunt. It had never been difficult, but she had become an expert in how his voice changed when he joked. "Why would I? I'm waiting for you."

"You just said that."

"I know. Just...don't forget. Whatever you find out there." Aloy took a moment to breathe, keeping her head from looking to the left and enjoying their small moment.

"I won't." Then she turned.

"Whoa! _ What _ is that?"

"They're new. I'm still trying to find a Strider, but they make a decent mount...once you manage to climb them, at least."

* * *

_ N Carson St. _

_ S Curry St. _

_ S Nevada St. _

Holotours had been fun with Erend trying to avoid the buildings arising in the living room; now, they were soaring above the barren land of Carson City. Had Elisabet stepped here or there? Had she used her Focus to navigate through the squarely named streets? The remnants had names in her mind now: there were cars, a piece of a what must have been a sign, a decrepit traffic light. "So, this was the capital...like Meridian?"

"Correct, Aloy. You're following the Kit Carson Trail, a path through Carson City's historic district."

Aloy stopped her Strider, made a few questions, and let CYAN get excited about explaining another detail of something she didn't fully understand. The purple lights of the holograms made it harder imagining how Victorian-era houses had looked in her eyes. Sobeck's eyes. 

Out of the five places where CYAN had found irregularities, three had earned her nothing. The fourth, however, had led her to Lake Tahoe: the mass of water ran to the horizon — the only sign of an ending were the lines of tighly packed trees and mountains encircling it.

GAIA's logs weren't easy to come by, but the latest she had found was better experienced crouching over the rocks of the lake's shore. Elisabet's voice grieved over the fetid water, mourning the loss of one of her favorite places in the world. CYAN's mark hadn't meant she was there. Not as Aloy hoped.

The water was blue-green and smooth, with small white stains of cloud reflected on its surface; the scent of pine trees and moist rocks resembled the Embrace's cold air, full of Rost's traces as Tahoe had been of Elisabet's family memories. Aloy had crouched and dipped Alana's necklace in the chilled water, rubbing to remove her crusted blood from the bone and leather, trying to blend who she was with who she wanted to be.

She had sat on the sand and breathed the cold water and the stars, prizing that she would've also cherished the snowy peaks under the night sky, Elisabet. Then the sun had risen, shining high above the clouds and bathing everything in gold. It wouldn't have been a terrible way of honoring her, finding her in the beauty of that place, but there was one possibility left, and she never stopped until the work was done.

The landscape changed as she left the mountains and filed south to a drier area that made her hope shift with her surroundings: from blue to yellow, from green to red. The ride had been tinted with dusk for a while when the number displaying in her Focus sunk below the three hundred. Three hundred feet. She was close. Then she saw them. 

Sparse and lonely trees, forming a ring, covered in fog. A car, then another mostly-broken sign. The glyphs were a shadow of the past, and while most of them were unreadable, the scraps fitted:_ Sobeck Ranch. _The Strider's back helped her keep her balance while her legs used those seconds they needed to steady. It hadn't been on purpose, but her feet began moving with her heart's beat. Would the entrance fall on her if she tried to pass it? It didn't look like it had been used for a long time. Her eyes caressed the rocks and the rusted metal, ignoring the grass tickling her shins.

The structure held, but her heart was pulsing too fast to keep the rhythm. Aloy stopped, trying to see something else than the pale purple of the flowers: a windmill, children's swings, the remains of a house. But nothing was as bright and familiar as DEMETER's buds. Or as intriguing as the metal that was shining in their center. The reasonable would be expecting nothing, but there was something in the air leaving traces to follow, making parallel lives meet.

She walked, hating what the voice in her head was saying: that every day, datapoint and step had led her to that moment. The fear swallowed the sound of the butterflies dancing over the blossoms, the Strider's noises, then it swept the breeze. Aloy waited until being so close that the suit couldn't have been anything but that. Then she raced. The leaves were covering parts of the figure, but there were arms, a trunk, a head. A Shield Weaver Armor, identical to the one she had dissected in the bunker months ago.

Her hands panicked, unsure of where to touch: what breath was she hoping to feel? What reaction was she hoping to get? How had Elisabet managed to get there? Her hand moved with precision this time, searching the right place to make it appear: the first letter wasn't supposed that one. Darting her eyes across the whole name to shorten the torture doubled the impact._ Dr. E.Sobeck. _

Her knees were holding the load of years, so she pleased them, driving them to the ground. The crevices of the worn-down metal weren't soft, but Aloy didn't mind: she slid her fingers over Elisabet's face. Over Elisabet's corpse, preserved for centuries. What had GAIA done to keep the Faro machines from devouring her? Aloy would've done the same, whatever it was.

She hadn't been in her belly, but the womb that had held her had been made by her. She hadn't been her creator, but she had created GAIA, who had trusted her with the world. She hadn't been there when she needed her the most, but the pain of her absence had made her strive and become better. 

Elisabet had been dead for a thousand years, but it hadn't stopped her from teaching her to be something else than her achievements. To look underneath them, to love. To be loved. How was she supposed to react? Should she have cried? Demanded answers she wouldn't get?

Meeting her mother had taken many forms in her mind since she was a child, and like in the best ones, she smiled. The girl who had left the Embrace months ago had become the woman she was now because of her. 

_ Mother _ had stopped meaning everything: she wasn't motherless; instead, there had been too many mothers to count. _ Mother _ wasn't hurtful when the power the Nora put in that word didn't work on her anymore. Not as it had. Someone to look up to. A trail to follow, a path to own. Elisabet was them already. The name of that connection didn't matter.

The lackluster metal wouldn't tell if she had suffered, but the small treasure hiding in her hand did: blue, rounded, with parts painted in green, with the same patterns that the ones she had seen in that hologram too long ago. Elisabet had died holding the Earth. 

Aloy sat, doing nothing for a few minutes except feeling the lingering sunlight warm her face. Then she read all the data points involving Elisabet or GAIA to the surroundings, letting them honor her better than any of her words would.

"It's not an impossible dream." Elisabet's voice. Her own, in a way. Erend always said they sounded very different, so maybe that's why it made her shiver whenever she heard _ The Good News _. "It is within our grasp if we work tirelessly and stop at nothing to achieve it. We can't stop life from ending. But if you will help me — help GAIA — we can give it a future. Join me and help make that future real."

Aloy replayed it again, and then another. She wanted to explain. Explain that she was happy to be alive, that she loved climbing to the highest peak and letting the breeze make her hair dance, that she knew what love was, and why Elisabet had believed it was the answer. She wanted to tell her that, despite the pain, she was happy about having found her. That she wouldn't want to be anyone else, that she wouldn't have wanted Elisabet to be any different.

"I will. I will help you, Elisabet. And GAIA. I promise."

Would she mind if she told her story? Erend would have scolded her for doubting it. Then he'd have ignored her doubts and begun explaining how he had won her heart by dodging a tomato. It'd be a lie, and if Elisabet was anything like her, she would know, but she wouldn't care, because she'd have noticed his warm smile before his silly joke.

Aloy played with her hair, wondering how to begin. "Rost. He was...my father. I thought you weren't similar at all, but...I think you would've liked him. He was Nora, and..._ yeah _, of course, you don't know the Nora. Uh, they are..."

Erend hadn't more thumbs to grind with his teeth. One possibility left, one last place to check. He had hurried to finish work early, ready to try to catch her the best he could despite the distance, but Aloy hadn't called yet, and she never took that long to call after getting to another one of those damn marked places.

The rug in front of the bedroom's chimney stroked his feet as he paced, so he indulged in the distraction and rubbed his toes against the hairs. The minutes became an hour, then two. Erend swung his hand, rejecting song after song, then he iced. Aloy was holocalling, and he didn't know if he'd be able to keep it together if she cried. 

"Erend?"

It had taken him some seconds to recognize those triangles. Aloy had stuck them to her Nora armor, and if his guess was any good, they had shone blue a long time ago. 

"Who...who's that?"

Aloy got closer to the figure and ran her fingers over the chest plate. The purple light was so bright that it hurt his eyes. Waiting. Aloy was waiting. What to say when the person you loved found the carcass of their mother, who had been dead for centuries? 

"You found her."

"Hm."

The bed jiggled under his weight. The lines looked almost eerie under the purple sheen, but all the signs were right after checking twice. Blue under her nails, dry texture over the metal. Aloy had drawn Rost's mark over the armor's chesplate. 

"Fire and spit...what...what do I do?"

"About what?" Erend's gaze drifted. The bed was undone, his armor was spread on the floor. He'd have to do a deep clean-up before she returned. Aloy didn't sound like she had been crying.

"Are you crying?"

"Why would I be crying?"

He would've let his palm slap his face, but it'd make too much noise. "You're fine."

"I'm fine."

His shirt moved up as Erend leaned back, making his arms stretch over his head as his back hit the bed. He put his left forearm over his eyes and his hand under the blouse's neck. Then he stroked his biceps, feeling the raised skin. He needn't see. Aloy's mother was wearing the same family mark as him, as them. 

"Aloy?" She hummed like she did when they were discussing what to buy for dinner, or when he asked if she knew where he had lost -again- his arm cuff. "I...wish I was there."

Her knees were welcoming him when he opened his eyes. Aloy had moved back and sat, her fingers were in the foreground, caressing Rost's necklace and a Focus.

"Me too." 

The grass around her legs disappeared when she looked up. The sky was a gradient of reds and oranges with navy blue edges and tattered scarlet. Had someone else felt that before? Lying in a bed, listening to someone thousands of feet away, missing terribly. The Focus kept his sanity, but seeing the same butterflies float aimlessly was tasteless if he couldn't squeeze her when she needed it the most. Aloy stood and shook her hips and shoulders to make the pieces of green hanging on her fell.

"What are you doing?"

"Mounting my Strider?"

"Already? I mean...you're not staying there? With her."

The night had eaten the contrast, but her eyes caught the darker shadows of the buildings, the lighter sheen of the flowers. The small glimmer of Elisabet's helmet. "I am." The blue lights of her Strider rode over Sobeck's Ranch entrance as she turned the machine around. "That's why I got to keep going. But I made a promise to someone."

"Yeah?"

"Hm. I said I'd be back this time and every time, so...now I have to keep it."

Erend couldn't be seeing much, but he'd notice if she turned to look back. Aloy grabbed the small Earth that Elisabet had been holding in her hand and opened it. Then she returned the Focus she had found in it to where it had been. 

_ Curious, willful, unstoppable. _

"So...it's _ that time _ yet? Time to come home."

Her fingers knew the motion. She opened the map, set the location, added the extra steps between the gates and the door in her mind. Loving the world so much that she'd fight until the end to heal it wasn't hard. 

It hadn't seemed like that then, when she had come out of Cradle-9 and the only thing moving her was that GAIA had made her for loving it. When she had said that yes, she'd fight a Metal Devil because it was the reason why she existed, wondering why she was supposed to save a world that had been so cruel to her. 

When she had hated herself for wanting more, for having to make an effort to hide her bitterness under the expansive love that was Sobeck's love.

When she had said "I can't ask you to come with me. My fight" in front of her friends' eyes, claiming that she'd fight HADES alone and unable to _ see _, when their voices in unison mixed with the sounds of weapons being prepared to strike. They had said no, she was not fighting alone. It had echoed in her stomach then: Rost had not wanted her to find only a purpose greater than herself, but the happiness of belonging.

Saving the world because it was something she had to do, something she had been made for wasn't saving it because she wanted to. It seemed so far then, that herself that wasn't aware of her own will. 

And yet. It hadn't been long. The only change had been him. Him and a little more time together.

Appreciating the world in its diversity had become easier after understanding the whys and wherefores, after seeing ally after ally put their life and trust in her to defend what was everyone's. They had joined arms against an enemy they had not seen, only heard of, heard it from her. No, she was no longer on her own.

Sitting in front of Elisabet, or what was left of her, and being able to laugh, smile, and tell the nooks and crannies of a story she might have wanted to hear had not been so easy, but Aloy felt the languid movements of her Strider under her legs and the mellow calm of accomplishment. 

Because to love, to love the world with a passion that bruised was the only option when he loved her and, because of this, she loved herself. That unnameable feeling that startled her when Erend claimed with no doubt that even that poorly made braid or that soup she had spiced up a little badly was okay. 

When his fingers glided across her skin with the surety of one who only checks that the wrapping is the perfect size, that there's nothing to change. She had spent a lifetime searching for something that would make the world a little less sullen, something that she did not have to endure every step of the way. 

He had come unannounced, with Erend's shy smile and easy laugh. Erend, who was waiting for her, proud, even if there were too many steps between where she was and that door. Erend, who made the world not only more beautiful, but a home. 

"Home, you say? I'll see what I can do."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, you :) Nice to see you here! So first fic+ ESL writer = thank you for giving this fic a chance! Posting this took a lot of courage, I hope that despite the bumps the ride managed to let you unwind a bit.
> 
> _Holocalls?_
> 
> The Focus’ or CYAN’s functionalities are not shown in-game, but you have them all on your phone. You can see an envelope icon in the opening scenes when child-Aloy is getting to know the Focus. I can't see how it wouldn't be able to take pictures or send messages.
> 
> _ The network?_
> 
> Other fics have handled the possibility of a network much better (I'd highly recommend [this one!](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11292189/chapters/25263012)) but I wanted to explore how getting tangled with the past doesn't mean only sad things plus how it could help Aloy break her isolation.
> 
> _Why would CYAN have music or holomovies? Or know about Carson City?_
> 
> She reads you poetry, and in the dialogue options, she mentions Concrete Beach Party and how knowing them has given "colorful additions" to her vocabulary. She also knows about Elisabet or Ted Faro. 
> 
> As far as I know, that's how we are teaching our robots to speak and about empathy: our current systems are data-dependent. For example, machines who are shown a larger set of positive emotions tend to recognize those more when used to test real-time emotion. We use movies, literature, real conversations, etc. so they can transcribe the audio, map the faces, etc. 
> 
> It's not that CYAN was meant to be a mini-APOLLO, but chances are she'd have a pretty big database of cool stuff! I also think it's reasonable she'd know about the US' ecosystem and history to make sensible choices about the Firebreak project for millennia. It feels too risky to me that she wouldn't have a minimum accessible offline; Chau and Sandoval knew the internet would...well, go to hell. 
> 
> I know it might feel as "another time Aloy takes too long to go back to Erend" but one of the things I missed the most was seeing how the past impacted her socialization skills. When you read, when you listen to music - it's a passive thing, you are forced to listen, to understand others. I felt giving her this tool would make it easier to imagine a successful long-term relationship between the two (and with herself). The amount of things she can learn from watching movies - and the time in which she can do it, well, nothing beats that.
> 
> _The ending_
> 
> I do think they would end up traveling together for some periods, but I also think he wouldn't just leave Ersa's Vanguard without looking back twice, and, primarily, that Aloy wouldn't want to always travel with someone else. I think Erend would understand that, and also be able to have a life where she isn't there until they're sort of ready to settle down or break up or whatever, who knows! 
> 
> No matter when you read this, don't be shy to drop a comment and let me know what you liked and what you hated! :)
> 
> [We Were Indonesia is a data point in the game](https://horizonzerodawn.fandom.com/wiki/We_Were_Indonesia). CYAN [mentions the Socratic method](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O2V8DUQR6OI) if you visit her after completing TFW's events. [The Kit Carson Trail Aloy follows is actually a thing.](https://visitcarsoncity.com/attractions/kit-carson-trail)
> 
> For one last time, thank you :)


End file.
